Citizens
For Legitimate Governmentis a multi-partisan
activist group established to expose the Bush
coup d'etat, and to oppose the Bush
occupation in all of its manifestations.

September
2006 Archives, Page Two

Detainee
bill allows rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse: Turning
Back the Clock on Rape (The New York Times) 23 Sep 2006 Rape,
sexual assault and sexual abuse are mentioned twice in the bill [as
crimes and war crimes]. But in each case, the wording creates new and
disturbing loopholes. In the bill, rape is narrowly defined as forced
or coerced genital or anal penetration. It utterly leaves out other
acts, as well as the notion that sex without consent is also rape, as
defined by numerous state laws and federal law. That is the more likely
case in a prison, where a helpless inmate would be unlikely to resist
the sexual overtures of a guard or interrogator.

Lawyer:
US officer at Guantánamo threatened me with internment
27 Sep 2006 A
British lawyer who represents detainees at Guantánamo Bay yesterday
claimed he was threatened with internment at the notorious camp by a
US military officer.
Clive Stafford-Smith has made at least eight visits to the camp, situated
on Cuban land occupied by the US, to consult with several detainees
he represents. He said the alleged intimidation reached a peak last
summer during a mass hunger strike. In August 2005, he said, "a military
lawyer took me into a cell and said it would be for me, as he alleged
I was behind the hunger strike. They have been making stuff up about
the clients and now they are making it up about me."

'They
were celebrating beating us. They were behaving like criminals'
--Iraqi says British troops relished beating captives --Soldiers
were as bad as Saddam, court martial told27
Sep
2006 An Iraqi hotel owner told a court martial yesterday that British
soldiers relished beating him, making bets on whether they could knock
him to the ground and laughing when he complained. Ahmad Taha Musa al-Matairi
said soldiers at a detention centre in Basra, southern Iraq, took turns
to punch and kick him and his fellow civilian prisoners. "They were
celebrating beating us. It was like Christmas," he said.

The
United States of Barbarism By James Bovard 25 Sep 2006 The U.S.
Senate is cutting a deal with President [sic] Bush to make America a
banana republic. Last week, three senators reached an agreement with
the White House that will de facto permit the CIA to continue torturing
people around the world. And the deal will prevent anyone — including
Bush administration officials — from being held liable for the torture...
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned recently that Bush’s efforts
to gut the Geneva Conventions would cause the world to "doubt the moral
basis of our fight against terrorism." But more important, the
Senate-White House torture deal should cause Americans to doubt the
moral basis of their entire government. [Right, but it's not 'our'
entire government; Bush was never elected.]

"You
might not be able to go early medieval, but you go late medieval."
--MSNBC's "Countdown" 22 Sep 2006 Professor Jonathan Turley:
Well, the president always has the authority to interpret treaties.
But that doesn‘t mean the world will accept it. What this does, though,
is, it seems to give legitimacy to the earlier torture memo that was
recently—or not that recently, rejected by the administration. Under
that torture memo, Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, argued that
they could do anything short of organ failure or death. Much of that
approach seems captured in this language, that, you know, you
might not be able to go early medieval, but you go late medieval.
I mean, it‘s a very poor document when it comes to human rights.

Intel
report: Iraq a 'cause celebre' for extremists 26 Sep 2006 The
war in Iraq has bred deep resentment in the Muslim world and provided
Islamist militants with a "cause celebre" that allowed the global movement
to cultivate supporters, according to excerpts of a secret intelligence
report released Tuesday.

Cost
of War: $550 Billion and Counting 26 Sep 2006 The nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service estimates that the total price tag for
U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as counterterrorism
activities around the world, will significantly exceed the half-trillion-dollar
mark over the next fiscal year.

PR
Firm Gets $12.4 M to Monitor Iraq Media, Plant Propaganda 26
Sep 2006 A public relations company known for its role in a controversial
U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for 'stories favorable
to coalition forces' [pro-occupation propaganda]
has been awarded another multimillion dollar media contract with American
forces in Iraq. Washington-based Lincoln Group won a two-year contract
to 'monitor' [censor] a number of English and Arabic media outlets
and produce 'public relations-type products such as talking points or
speeches' [propaganda] for U.S. forces in Iraq, officials said
Tuesday. The type of contract, its cost, and the fact that it was awarded
to the PR and communications company have raised questions.

Halliburton
paid $4 million to politicians for 600% gain on contracts since 2000
26 Sep 2006 (HalliburtonWatch.org) Halliburton spent $4.6 million since
2000 buying influence in Washington via campaign donations and lobbying,
a HalliburtonWatch analysis reveals. In 2000, Halliburton was the 20th
largest federal contractor, receiving $763 million in federal contracts.
By 2005, Halliburton
had grown to become the 6th largest federal contractor, receiving
nearly $6 billion in federal contracts during that year.

Mortar
bombs kill family in Iraq's Baquba, 8 dead 27 Sep 2006 A barrage
of mortar rounds fell on and around a home in the Iraqi town of Baquba
early on Wednesday killing eight people, including seven members of
one family, and wounding two others, police said.

Suicide
bomb kills 18 in south Afghanistan 26 Sep 2006 A suicide bomber
killed 18 in south Afghanistan and a blast killed an Italian NATO soldier.
On Tuesday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide blast
outside the governor's office in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province.

'Million
bomblets' in S Lebanon 26 Sep 2006 Up to a million cluster bomblets
discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded
in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

Israeli
Air Strike Kills Teenage Girl --7 Others Hurt In Bombing
On Gaza-Egypt Border 26 Sep 2006 Israeli air strikes on a house
in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Wednesday killed a 14-year-old
girl and wounded seven other people, hospital officials said.

UN
says Gaza crisis 'intolerable' 26 Sep 2006 Standards of human
rights in the Palestinian territories have fallen to intolerable new
levels, says a UN expert on the Mid-East conflict. John Dugard said
Israel was largely to blame for turning Gaza into "a prison" and
"throwing away the key".

Rice
calls for sanctions against Syria 27 Sep 2006 According to a
state department transcript released on Tuesday, Condoleezza Rice, the
US secretary of state [war criminal], told the New York Times: "We'd
like to get some others to join us in other kinds of sanctions [against
Syria]."

Arms
spending hits all-time high 22 Sep 2006 Global spending on arms
has hit a record high, swelling to 17 times the amount earmarked for
alleviating world hunger. This year, £561billion
will be used to buy weapons – more than the £547billion spent at the
peak of the Cold War.

AWOL
Soldier Surrenders at Army Base 27 Sep 2006 An Army medic who
fled rather than serve a second tour in Iraq because he believes war
is immoral turned himself in Tuesday to face a possible court-martial.

Peaceful
Iraq war protests prompt 71 arrests 26 Sep 2006 Two Presbyterian
ministers were among 71 people arrested during a series of peaceful
protests against the Iraq war Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for a group
participating in the protests.

CIA
Leak Probe Relatively Inexpensive 27 Sep 2006 Special Counsel
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who investigated whether senior Bush administration
officials illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative for political
payback, has spent $1.4 million in his probe over the past three years,
his office reported yesterday -- a figure that establishes him as remarkably
frugal in the ranks of recent special investigators.

Going,
going, not quite gone --Commanding speech ends in rapturous
send-off 27 Sep 2006 Tony Blair bade farewell to his party last night,
insisting it was "right for him to let go" and challenging his successor
to avoid the political comfort zone and show "raw courage" in meeting
the new global task of reconciling liberty and security.

Rice
OK'd Claim of 'Safe Air' After 9/11
24 Sep 2006 Condoleezza Rice's office gave final approval to the infamous
Environmental Protection Agency press releases days after 9/11 claiming
the air around Ground Zero was "safe to breathe," internal documents
show. Scientists and lawmakers have since deemed the air
rife with toxins. [Air that key members of the Bush regime
need to breathe 24/7? <g>]

A
textbook definition of cowardice
--Keith Olbermann comments on Bill Clinton's Fox News interview 26 Sep
2006 Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence
Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent
failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it. The kind
of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas
at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat. It was the kind of
cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the
lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the
virtuous and reward the useless.

Republican
Congress Robs the Poor By Bill Gallagher 26 Sep 2006 The Republican-controlled
Congress has abrogated its most basic constitutional obligations, ignored
an unprecedented assault on the Bill of Rights, allowed the president
to dictate legislative decisions and willingly yielded to power-crazed
George W. Bush's lust to have the absolute power that corrupts absolutely.
The worst Congress in more than a century has besmirched the institution
by making K Street lobbyists gods, creating an atmosphere for rampant
bribery and favor-taking, and spending more on pork-barrel projects
than any Congress in history. The spending is wildly out of control,
and Bush enables the fiscal benders (he's never vetoed a spending bill)
so he can keep the GOP Congress in line and subservient to him.

Big
Oil Bleeding Taxpayers Dry As Washington Republicans Look Away
By John Hanchette 26 Sep 2006 One huge energy corporation, Kerr-McGee,
has filed a mammoth lawsuit claiming that Congress never authorized
the Department of Interior to set royalty cut-offs on leases awarded
at the end of the Clinton years whenever the price of crude oil reached
a certain per-barrel price. If the company wins the suit, as many experts
predict, about 75 percent of the oil and natural gas produced in the
Gulf of Mexico over the next five years will be royalty free. The Government
Accountability Office predicts such an outcome could mean the federal
government -- and taxpayers -- could lose about $80
billion in royalty revenues over the next quarter century.

Americans
skeptical about gas price drop 25 Sep 2006 According to a new
Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that
the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline
so that it would decrease before this fall's elections."

Bill
Criminalizing Minor Abortions OK'd 27 Sep 2006 Accompanying
a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion and avoid parental
notification in the girl's home state would become a federal crime under
a bill the House passed Tuesday.

Officials
urge Coloradans to vote by absentee ballot 26 Sep 2006 Some
Colorado counties stand ready to help voters cast their paper ballots
by mail to alleviate concerns about potential tampering or other problems
with computerized 'voting' machines. The secretary of state did an "abysmal"
job of security testing on the new touch-screen machines, Denver District
Judge Lawrence Manzanares ruled Friday. But he said it was too late
to bar the machines from the election, as plaintiffs in the lawsuit
requested. [The GOP owned & operated electronic 'voting' machines
need to be destroyed. They are not voting machines; they are tools of
the next coups. --LRP]

U.S.
blocked hurricane report, journal says --Nature: Commerce
official withheld panel finding on global warming A federal agency
has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing
to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported
Tuesday.

World
'warmest for 12,000 years' 26 Sep 2006 The world is the warmest
it has been in the last 12,000 years as a result of rapid warming over
the past 30 years, a study has suggested.

*****

Detainee
Measure Allows Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens
26 Sep 2006 In recent days, the Bush regime and its House allies successfully
pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government
could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants," government
sources said yesterday. As a result, human rights experts expressed
concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a
precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention
of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who
has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United
States" or its military allies. The definition
applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and
does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an
unlawful combatant. Kate Martin, director of the Center for
National Security Studies, said that by including those who "supported
hostilities" -- rather than those who "engage in acts" against the United
States -- the government intends the legislation to sanction its
seizure and indefinite detention of people far from the battlefield.

Boys
Gone Wild--Pick Your Favorite Homoerotic Torture Technique
By Ted Rall 19 Sep 2006 No one talked about it much at the time, but
those now-forgotten photos of torture and humiliation at Abu Ghraib
were the kind of extreme homoerotic kink your local porn vendor keeps
hidden under the counter... Of course, America's state media censored
the most disturbing images. Hundreds of photos showed sex acts between
and among soldiers and detainees. Male prisoners were videotaped while
being forced to masturbate and have sex with one another... U.S. soldiers,
CIA torturers and private mercenaries hired by the Bush Defense Department
sodomized them with flashlights and possibly broomsticks. They were
kept naked for days at a time.

McCain
Names Practices Detainee Bill Would Bar --Senator Says 3 Interrogation
Methods Are Among the 'Extreme Measures' the Plan Would Outlaw 25 Sep
2006 A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new
rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that
he believes a compromise bill embraced by party leaders and the White
House will bar some of the most extreme techniques said to have been
used by the CIA.

Congress
in dark on terror program --Few briefed on CIA interrogation
23 Sep 2006 As lawmakers prepare to debate the CIA's special interrogation
program for terrorism suspects, fewer than 10 percent of the members
of Congress [40 of 535] have been told which interrogation techniques
have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would
be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act.

Guantanamo
Inmates Turn to Library Books 24 Sep 2006 A detainee library
is housed in a trailer inside the Guantanamo Bay prison complex. Library
books are being delivered to all the detention camps, officials said.
The detainees are avid readers, according to the librarians. With detainees
largely confined to cramped cells most of the day, reading
provides an outlet and can help take their minds off the prospect that
they may be jailed for years or even the rest of their lives with no
trial. The deputy commander of the detention facilities said
many of the roughly 460 detainees have college degrees. "There
are some very smart individuals here,'' said Army Brig. Gen. Edward
A. Leacock. [Oh, good! At least I'll get to read. --LRP]

Wiretap
Bill Moves Closer to Passage 26 Sep 2006 [Minor] Last-minute
changes to legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's warrantless
wiretapping program have won the support of three balking Senate Republicans,
improving the chances that a bill expanding the Bush regime's surveillance
authority will pass Congress this week.

Terror
bounty paid by CIA 26 Sep 2006 The CIA paid Pakistan millions
of dollars for handing over to the US more than 350 suspected al-Qaida
[al-CIAduh] terrorists, Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf has said. The claims come in the military
ruler's new memoir, In the Line of Fire. Such payments are banned
by the US government.

D.C.
First Responders Hold 'Rock & Roll' Terror Drill
22 Sep 2006 First responders in the District held a drill on Wednesday
in order to prepare for a [Bush bin Laden] large-scale terrorist attack.
The scene was an attack during a large rock concert at RFK Stadium called
Rock & Roll 2006. During the simulated rock concert, a "suicide bomber"
entered a tunnel below Independence Avenue and detonated a bomb, leaving
mass casualties in the mock terror attack.

Bush
hikes the fearmongering before the 'elections,' even though we all know
Cheney Halliburton sent the Fort Detrick-born and bred anthrax to the
Democrats so that they would change their minds and vote for the 'Patriot'
Act (they did.) FBI
Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks 25 Sep 2006 Five years
after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced
that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated
than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in
a frustratingly slow investigation. The finding, which resulted from
countless scientific tests at numerous laboratories, appears to undermine
the widely held belief that the attack was
carried out by a government scientist or someone with access to a U.S.
biodefense lab. [Why were White House personnel taking
Cipro one *month* before the first anthrax attack??]

U.S.
Eases Carry-On Liquid Ban
26 Sep 2006 Passengers on commercial airplanes will be allowed to travel
with small amounts of liquids and gels in their carry-on luggage starting
this morning -- the first major revision of a ban enacted last month
in reaction to an alleged transatlantic bomb plot. Drinks purchased
inside secure areas [What a racket!] also will be permitted on board.

Proposal
to Carve Up Iraq Moves Forward
25 Sep 2006 Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups moved ahead Monday with
forming a committee to consider amending the constitution after their
leaders agreed to delay any division of the country into autonomous
states until 2008. The deal was a victory for Sunni Arabs, who had been
fighting the federalism bill proposed by Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz al-Hakim,
the leader of the United Iraqi Alliance. They fear that if not amended,
it will splinter the country and deny them
a share of Iraq's oil, which is found in the predominantly
Kurdish north and the heavily Shiite south.

New
judge in Saddam's court is not a judge By LadyBird 23 Sep 2006
Elaph
revealed that the new judge in Saddam’s court is not a judge A judicial
source close to the Iraqi Criminal Court revealed that the judge of
the Supreme Court in Saddam Hussein trial is not a judge and didn’t
exercise this profession ever in his life. "Majid Mohamed Aribi"
was chosen with hurry to get rid of the former Judge Abdullah Al-Amri.
[That's OK - Bush is not a president. He was chosen in a hurry, too.
--LRP]

Generals,
spies attack Bush Iraq policy
26 Sep 2006 Part of a comprehensive spy report finished in April and
leaked last weekend said the U.S. invasion of Iraq helped create a new
generation of Islamic radicals and increased the global terrorism threat.
That's the opposite of what President [sic] George W. Bush has been
telling Americans for weeks in pre-election speeches and it could have
a significant impact on whether the party retains control of Congress
this fall.

Army
Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short --An extraordinary action
by the chief of staff sends a message: The Pentagon must increase the
budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere. 25 Sep 2006 The
Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon
leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
thatthe service could not maintain its current
level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without
billions in additional funding. The decision by Gen. Peter
J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented
and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence
of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must
be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

US
Army looks for ways to send more troops to Iraq 25 Sep 2006
The US Army and Marine Corps are looking for ways to send more combat
units into the Iraq rotation pool and are considering accelerating the
pace of deployments for some brigades in order to keep more than 140,000
troops in the country through at least the spring of 2007.

Top
Generals Hint at Army Expansion of 60,000 Troops
25 Sep 2006 The strain on the Army from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
has become so great that top officials are now privately saying the
only long-term solution may be to make the overall size of the Army
bigger, adding as many as 60,000 troops, ABC News has learned.

U.S.
Army Extends Iraq Duty for 4,000 25 Sep 2006 In a new sign of
mounting strain from the war in Iraq, the Army has extended the combat
tours of about 4,000 soldiers who would otherwise be returning home,
a defense official said Monday.

Retired
US generals demand Rumsfeld resign 25 Sep 2006 Two retired army
generals and a retired Marine colonel demanded Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld resign, accusing him of incompetence, arrogance and
determination to wage war in Iraq on the cheap.

Navy
Strike Group Contributing to Iraq, Afghanistan Security 25 Sep
2006 U.S. Navy forces in the Arabian Gulf have been contributing to
the war on [of] terror by conducting maritime security operations
and providing support to troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan,
a Navy strike group commander said today.

5,000
Israeli troops linger in South 25 Sep 2006 Despite an Israeli
pledge to withdraw from Lebanese territory once the number of United
Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon troops reaches 5,000, Israeli soldiers
remain in their positions in the South on Sunday.

Pope
Rat is helping the GOP again, as he did in 2004 when he criticized Kerry
and abortions before the 'elections:' Pope
to Meet With Muslims to Defuse Anger 25 Sep 2006 Muslim diplomats
were meeting Monday with Pope Benedict XVI in the pontiff's latest effort
to mend relations after his remarks about Islam and violence ignited
the Vatican's most serious international crisis in decades. [Pope
Rat purposely made the incendiary comments to provoke Muslims into (justified)
protests, which in turn provide fodder for the Reichwing media to force
Bush's 'war on terror' down our throats.]

"Jihad"
car commercial upsets U.S. Muslims
25 Sep 2006 A car commercial proclaiming a jihad on the U.S. auto market
and offering "Fatwa Fridays" with free swords for the kids is offensive
and should not be aired, Muslim leaders said on Sunday. The radio advertisement
for the Dennis Mitsubishi car dealership in Columbus, Ohio, has "a whole
jihad theme," said Adnan Mirza, director of the Columbus office of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Oil
Price Manipulation: Taking from the Poor to Give to the Rich
By Phil Davis 15 Sep 2006 There can be no doubt as to the [Cheney
Energy Task Force]’s effect (even though we are not allowed to know
who was on it or what was said), as oil climbed 25% in 2002 to average
$25 for the year. Our Vice-President
[sic] (former Halliburton Co. CEO) found this to be unacceptable and
sprang into action, reconvening the secret society in 2002... Well,
Exxon earned $10b last quarter alone, more money than they earned in
all of 1999 when those pesky Democrats were in office! ...On a global
scale, Cheney and Bush's circle of friends
are raking in $1 trillion more per year than they did in 2000—Mission
Accomplished for sure!

Mega
barf alert!Snow
to raise money for GOP candidates 25 Sep 2006 White House press
secretary Tony Snow is taking his gift of gab across the country in
the coming weeks to raise money for Republican candidates, an unusual
task for the president's top spokesman.

*****

"I
never thought I'd see the United States — champion of human rights and
rule of law — legislating torture and Soviet-style kangaroo tribunals.
I never thought I'd see Congress and a majority of Americans supporting
such police state measures."U.S.
gets 'Sovietized' By Eric Margolis 24 Sep 2006 Prisoners taken
in the dead of night to Lubyanka [Moscow’s prison] were systematically
beaten for days with rubber hoses and clubs. Prisoners taken in the
dead of night to Lubyanka were systematically beaten for days with rubber
hoses and clubs. There were special cold rooms where prisoners could
be frozen to near death. Sleep deprivation was a favourite and most
effective Cheka technique. I recall these past horrors because of what
this column has long called the gradual "Sovietization" of
the United States... We have seen America's president [sic] and vice
president [sic], sworn to uphold the Constitution, advocating some of
the same interrogation techniques the KGB used at the Lubyanka. They
apparently believe beating, freezing, sleep deprivation and near-drowning
are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. So did Stalin. The White
House insisted that anyone — including Americans — could be kidnapped
and tried in camera using "evidence" obtained by torturing
other suspects.

GOP
Upbeat on Terror-Trial Bill [GOP Upbeat on Torture] 23 Sep 2006
A few liberal Democratic lawmakers attacked the bill yesterday, but
none signaled all-out plans to try to kill it... Caroline Fredrickson,
director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative
office, called the legislation a "get out of jail free" card for the
administration's "top torture officials." She said it would render the
Geneva Conventions' protections "irrelevant and unenforceable."

Specter
Objects to Part of Detainee Bill 24 Sep 2006 The chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he has a problem with the
Republican agreement on rules for the interrogation and trial of suspects
in the war on [of] terror. Dictator Bush is pushing Congress
to put the agreement into law before adjourning for the midterm elections,
but Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Sunday he "vigorously" disagrees
with the habeas corpus provision of the bill.

Afghan
officers arrested for smuggling weapons to Taliban: report 23
Sep 2006 Several Afghan officers were detained for trafficking weapons
and ammunition to Taliban militants, a local newspaper reported. Several
Afghan officers, including Brigadier Abdul Faqir, chief of weapon depots
in Khirabad, south of Kabul, have been arrested for being involved in
the smuggling case, the newspaper said.

Secret
Torture in Afghanistan --The concealed deaths of two detainees
at Gardez paints a troubling picture of abuse by U.S. Special Forces
units there. 23 Sep 2006 Apparently unknown to Army officials, two
detainees had died in the team's [Green Berets of ODA] 2021 custody
in separate incidents during the unit's final month in eastern Afghanistan.
Several other detainees allege that they were badly beaten or tortured
while held at the base in Gardez... An 18-year-old Afghan army recruit
died after being interrogated at the firebase. Descriptions of his injuries
were consistent with severe beatings and other abuse. A member of the
Special Forces team told The Times his unit held a meeting after the
teen's death to coordinate
their stories should an investigation arise.

Suspected
CIA Kidnappers Identified 21 Sep 2006 The US intelligence agents
involved in wrongly kidnapping a German citizen of Arab descent [Khaled
al-Masri] could soon face warrants for their arrest. Clues to their
identity have turned up from Spanish authorities and German TV journalists.

Spy
Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat 24 Sep 2006 A stark
assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has
found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn
a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist
threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Republicans
Say Terror Report Shouldn't Alter Goals[of enriching Halliburton's
coffers] 24 Sep 2006 A national intelligence assessment that concludes
the Iraq war has increased the threat from terrorism shouldn't cause
the U.S. to abandon military operations there, leading Senate Republicans
said.

"They
took this money and parked it to use later."Army
Corps Faked Budget Entries --Funds for Iraq work, set to expire,
were stashed. 23 Sep 2006 The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created
fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds
of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according
to a federal audit released Friday. Corps officials listed $362 million
in potential contracts for a nonexistent contractor labeled "Dummy Vendor"
in a government database, an accounting trick to preserve funds
due to expire at the end of this fiscal year, the audit said.

Ex-Halliburton
Worker Calls for Probe 22 Sep 2006 A former Halliburton Co.
employee wants Congress to investigate what he claims are the company's
efforts to cover up violations of corruption laws and to mislead investigators.

Blast
near Iraq Health Ministry kills 6 24 Sep 2006 A car bomb exploded
by a police patrol and killed six people near the Health Ministry, which
was shelled with mortars earlier in the morning. The bomb attack killed
four policemen and two civilians. It wounded four officers and two civilians,
police said.

Explosion
kills at least 37 in Baghdad 23 Sep 2006 At least 37 people
were killed and dozens of others were wounded in a fiery Sadr City bomb
blast. At least 38 people were wounded in the blast that blew up a kerosene
tanker, and authorities expect the casualty toll to rise.

'Iraqi
troops refusing Baghdad duty' 23 Sep 2006 The US commander in
Baghdad has said that more troops are needed on the streets of Baghdad,
but Iraqi soldiers are refusing to leave other parts of the country
to serve in the capital.

Saddam
lawyers to protest new judge by boycotting genocide trial
24 Sep 2006 Saddam Hussein's top lawyer said Sunday the former Iraqi
president's defense team will not attend his genocide trial when it
resumes Monday in protest at the new chief judge's behavior, and will
stay away "indefinitely," according to statements quoted by AP. The
original judge was replaced last week by the government after he said
in court Hussein was not a dictator.

Thousands
at city's anti-war demo 23 Sep 2006 Thousands of anti-war protesters
have gathered in Manchester for what organisers said was "one of the
biggest mobilisations outside London". Demonstrators were protesting
against government policies in the Middle East and nuclear weapons,
on the eve of the Labour Party conference in the city.

"Now
I have no documents and cannot travel."Chavez
minister verbally abused, strip-searched during 90-minute interrogation
24 Sep 2006 Venezuela has accused US officials of stopping its foreign
minister, Nicolas Maduro, and stripping him of his travel documents
after he visited the UN. Venezuela has made a formal complaint to the
US authorities and to the UN secretary general about the incident. At
a news conference in New York, the foreign minister said his ticket
and passport were confiscated illegally by US officials at the security
check. He said he was then verbally abused and strip-searched during
a 90-minute interrogation.

U.S.
Apologizes for Detaining Venezuela Diplomat 23 Sep 2006 Venezuela's
foreign minister was detained at a New York airport on Saturday, prompting
an apology from the U.S. government and compounding already tense relations
between the two countries.

Chavez:
U.S. Detained Foreign Minister
23 Sep 2006 Venezuela's foreign minister was detained by U.S. authorities
at a New York airport for more than hour Saturday as he tried to return
to the South American country, President Hugo Chavez said.

U.S.
to blame for attack on its embassy: Syria 24 Sep 2006 The United
States and its Middle East policies are to blame for a recent failed
attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
was quoted on Sunday as saying in a German magazine.

Report:
Bin Laden Already Dead26 Dec 2001
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication,
the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly
attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. Bin Laden, according to
the source, was suffering from a serious lung complication and succumbed
to the disease in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains.

France,
US, unable to confirm report bin Laden dead 23 Sep 2006 France
and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm a report
that Osama bin Laden had died and France launched a probe into how a
secret document containing the claim was leaked.

Students,
Beware Professor Osama
By Rosa Brooks 15 Sep 2006 A typical [David] Horowitz cause celebre:
a Colorado student whose professor allegedly gave her an F when she
refused to agree that George W. Bush is a war criminal. When critics
took a close look, though, it turned out that the student actually got
a B, that she had misrepresented the assignment and that the professor
was … a Republican. The real agenda behind this so-called bill of rights
has nothing to do with fostering intellectual pluralism and everything
to do with marginalizing or eliminating academics who deviate from the
right-wing party line.

The
Dollar$ & $en$e of 911 By Douglas Herman 18 Sep 2006 Who benefitted
most by the New York Massacre? Millions were invested before the attack.
Hundreds of millions were made the same day. Neither crime received
much attention by the US government. Perhaps because friends of the
US government stood to gain billions of dollars, in the following years...
Remember those Put Options? "The identity of this person who had foreknowledge
of the attack is known and this person's identity is being protected
by our government and this is a fact! Period, end of story," reported
Jesse Richard, editor of TVNewsLies.com.

Texas
Democrats File Suit Against Voting Fraud Law 23 Sep 2006 In
the latest of the nation’s skirmishes over voting rights, Texas Democrats
have sued two top Republican state officials over an antifraud law that
the suit says is being used to intimidate minority voters casting
ballots by mail.

Antarctic
ozone hole nears record: U.N. agency 22 Sep 2006 The hole over
Antarctica's ozone layer is bigger than last year and is nearing the
record 29-million-square-km (11-million-sq-mile) hole seen in 2000,
the World Meteorological Organization said on Friday.

*****

"You
might not be able to go early medieval, but you go late medieval."
--MSNBC's "Countdown" 22 Sep 2006 Professor Jonathan Turley:
Well, the president always has the authority to interpret treaties.
But that doesn‘t mean the world will accept it. What this does, though,
is, it seems to give legitimacy to the earlier torture memo that was
recently—or not that recently, rejected by the administration. Under
that torture memo, Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, argued that
they could do anything short of organ failure or death. Much of that
approach seems captured in this language, that, you know, you
might not be able to go early medieval, but you go late medieval.
I mean, it‘s a very poor document when it comes to human rights.

Detainee
Deal Comes With Contradictions
23 Sep 2006 The compromise reached on Thursday between Congressional
Republicans and the White House on the interrogations and trials of
terrorism suspects is, legal experts said yesterday, a series of interlocking
paradoxes. It would impose new legal standards
that it forbids the courts to enforce.

Compromise
on treatment of terror suspects assailed --Critics include
military defense lawyers who say it's 'worse' than the system in place
22 Sep 2006 Military defense lawyers assailed compromise legislation
for interrogating and prosecuting terrorist suspects, contending Friday
that proposed rules would prevent them from learning whether evidence
used against their clients was obtained through coercion or torture.

Senate-White
House compromise sanctions CIA torture of detainees By Joe Kay
and Barry Grey 23 Sep 2006 The Bush administration and Republican senators
agreed Wednesday night on legislation that sanctions secret CIA prisons
and permits abusive interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Conventions
and other international and domestic anti-torture statutes. The bill
also gives congressional approval for military commissions that strip
Guantánamo detainees of basic due process rights, while denying them
the elementary right to seek redress from arbitrary imprisonment through
the filing of habeas corpus suits in US courts. With this agreement,
the US Congress is preparing to give its official imprimatur to the
use of barbaric methods historically associated with military and fascist
dictatorships, as well as the repudiation of democratic principles that
go back to the Magna Carta of 1215.

The
Abuse Can Continue--Senators
won't authorize torture, but they won't prevent it, either. (The
Washington Post) 22 Sep 2006 ...Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday,
intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain
terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing
his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order
and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize
such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep
deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would
recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners
from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize
CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and
protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.

A
Bad Bargain (The New York Times) 22 Sep 2006 While the White
House agreed to a list of "grave breaches" of the conventions
that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president
could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the
Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible.
It’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those
decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed
to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific
interrogation techniques will remain secret... It
allows the president to declare any foreigner, anywhere, an "illegal
enemy combatant" using a dangerously broad
definition, and detain him without any trial.

Bush
Gets His Way
By Dan Froomkin 22 Sep 2006 Pay no attention to the news stories suggesting
that the White House caved in yesterday. On the central issue of whether
the CIA should continue using interrogation methods on suspected terrorists
that many say constitute torture, the White House got its way... The
"compromise"? The Republican senators essentially agreed to look the
other way... Members
of the traditional press were paying scant attention to the issue of
state-sanctioned torture until a
rift appeared within the Republican party itself.

Bill
Clinton warns against wide torture approval 21 Sep 2006 Former
U.S. President Bill Clinton joined a chorus of critics of Bush regime
proposals for treating suspected terrorists, saying it would be unnecessary
and wrong to give broad approval to torture.

Lost
in a Bermuda Triangle of Injustice - The Facts on the Ground
--Mini-Gulags, Hired Guns, Lobbyists, and a Reality Built on Fear
By Tom Engelhardt 21 Sep 2006 Camp Cropper itself turns out to be an
interesting story, but one with a problem: While the emptying of Abu
Ghraib made the news everywhere, the filling of Camp Cropper made no
news at all. And yet it turns out that Camp Cropper, which started out
as a bunch of tents, has now become a $60
million "state-of-the-art" prison... We really have no idea what
it consists of or what it looks like, even though it's in one of the
few places in Iraq that an American reporter could safely visit, being
on a vast American military base constructed, like the prison, with
taxpayer dollars.

More
Death Squad Victims Found in Iraq 23 Sep 2006 The bodies of
five apparent victims of [Bush's] death squads were turned in Saturday
to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. The victims were
blindfolded with their arms and hands bound, and showed signs of
having been tortured, he said.

No
timetable for US withdrawal: Iraq 22 Sep 2006 Iraq's President
Jalal Talabani said the government will not talk about a timetable for
withdrawing US-led forces until the Iraqi armed forces are capable of
ending terrorism and maintaining security.

U.S.
fatalities in war exceed those from Sept. 11--Military
deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan reach 2,974 22 Sep 2006 Now [Likely,
a lot earlier] the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths
from Iraq and Afghanistan now surpass those of the most devastating
terrorist attack in America’s history, the trigger for what came next.

Blast
damages mosque in Iraq --Blaze spreads to homes, bakery; trouble
getting Iraqi troops to patrol Baghdad 23 Sep 2006 [US] Attackers severely
damaged a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad before noon Friday, and the
resulting blaze set fire to eight nearby homes and a bakery, a U.S.
military official said.

Danish
soldier dies in roadside bomb blast in Iraq 23 Sep 2006 A Danish
soldier was killed and eight others were injured by a roadside bomb
in southern Iraq Saturday, the army said. He was the fourth Danish soldier
to die in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

American
killed at UK base in Iraq's Basra 23 Sep 2006 A U.S. 'contractor'
[mercenary] working for the American consulate in Iraq's second biggest
city, Basra, was killed by a rocket that struck the main British compound
in the city overnight, U.S. and British officials said on Saturday.

Officers
warn about plight of British troops --Frontline messages
tell of Afghanistan casualty rate --Army let down by 'utterly
useless' RAF 23 Sep 2006 British troops in Afghanistan are exhausted
and desperately short of helicopters, and there is no sign that the
casualty rate will fall, according to accounts yesterday from officers
on the frontline.

'We
Don't Have The Troops' 22 Sep 2006 Leaked emails from a British
serving officer in Afghanistan have revealed more of the armed forces'
concerns about the fight against the Taliban. The three emails - seen
by Sky News - say some RAF pilots have been "utterly, utterly useless"
in supporting troops on the ground.

War
Signals? By Dave Lindorff 21 Sep 2006 As reports circulate of
a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action
against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation
has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved
up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the
nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer,
frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf,
just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report
in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print,
that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders
to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.

Plan
to expand US base sparks row 22 Sep 2006 Premier Romano Prodi's
government is under pressure to block plans to set up the biggest American
military base outside the US on Italian territory.

New
York City's Reservists Are Asked to Return Iraq Pay 23 Sep 2006
When they were called up for military service in the wake of 9/11, hundreds
of uniformed city workers in the Reserves faced the suspension of their
city health and pension benefits. The city offered them an option: it
would keep paying their salaries and continue their benefits, but when
they returned they would have to repay the city their city salary or
their military pay, whichever was less. Now the bills from the city
are coming due, for far more than many veterans imagined they would
have to pay — as much as $200,000 — and often for more money than they
ever received. The city is demanding that the veterans repay their gross
salaries, even though they never saw about a third of the money, which
went for taxes and other deductions.

Nasrallah:
No army can disarm Hezbollah 22 Sep 2006 Hezbollah leader Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah 'defied the international community' [no he didn't]
in his first major appearance since the war with Israel, telling hundreds
of thousands of supporters at a victory rally Friday that no army could
disarm his militia.

French
paper says bin Laden died in Pakistan 23 Sep 2006 A French regional
newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying
that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

U.S.
has nothing to back French bin Laden report
23 Sep 2006 The U.S. government has no evidence to support a French
newspaper report suggesting that al Qaeda [al CIAduh]
leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid a month ago, an intelligence
official said on Saturday.

Leaders
duck 'stone age' threat 23 Sep 2006 US President [sic] George
W. Bush and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf overnight celebrated
their close cooperation in the war on terrorism but did not deny that
it began with a US threat to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age."

'Dirty
Bomb' Prep Reveals Radiation In S.I. Park 21 Sep 2006 Anti-terrorism
officials conducted a helicopter survey of New York City's radiation
sources in preparation for a so-called "dirty bomb" attack -- and discovered
a Staten Island park with dangerously high levels of radium, a new report
found.

Govt
'ruining' terror suspect's life 23 Sep 2006 (AU) The federal
government is ruining the life of freed terrorist suspect Jack Thomas
with "extreme and draconian" measures to appear tough on the war on
[of] terrorism, his brother says.

Feds
Seek to Block Oregon Spying Case 23 Sep 2006 U.S. inJustice
Department lawyers filed an appeal Friday aimed at blocking a lawsuit
by a former Islamic charity that has challenged a Bush regime secret
surveillance program. U.S. District Judge Garr M. King ruled earlier
this month that a lawsuit by the defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation
chapter in Ashland could go forward without damaging national security.

DHS
aims to keep more about security clearance applications secret
20 Sep 2006 The Homeland Security Department is proposing to scale back
what information can be viewed by clearance applicants under the 1974
Privacy Act, saying the investigative techniques of its Office of Security
are jeopardized when documents are made available.

SF
Chronicle Reporters to Be Jailed 21 Sep 2006 Two San Francisco
Chronicle reporters were sentenced to a maximum 18 months in prison
Thursday, pending an appeal, for refusing to testify about who leaked
them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes.

Church
fighting IRS over anti-war sermon won't give up documents 22
Sep 2006 An Episcopal church's decision Thursday not to cooperate with
an IRS investigation into an anti-war sermon delivered before the 2004
presidential election sets up a high-profile confrontation between the
liberal congregation and the IRS, which usually keeps such inquiries
private.

Lopez
Obrador to Form Cabinet 22 Sep 2006 Amid a transition taking
place from Vicente Fox to president-elect Felipe Calderon, opposition
leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced his own working cabinet
as the political crisis deepens in Mexico.

"It
makes us feel good to give."Chavez
to Double Energy Subsidies to Needy in U.S. 22 Sep 2006 A day
after he called President [sic] Bush "the devil" from the podium at
the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood at the altar
of a Harlem church and presented himself as an angel, offering 100 million
gallons of subsidized heating oil to needy Americans.

U.S.
Best Seller, Thanks to Rave by Latin Leftist 23 Sep 2006 Ever
since Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, held up a copy of a 301-page
book by Noam Chomsky, the linguist and left-wing political commentator,
during a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, sales of the book
have climbed best-seller lists at Amazon.com, BN.com, and booksellers
around the country have noted a spike in sales.

Fox
News Sunday, Interview With President Bill Clinton 22 Sep 2006
(Rough Transcript) CLINTON: I think it’s very interesting that all the
conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed
that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President [sic] Bush’s neocons
claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t
have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left
office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said
that I did too much. Same people. [Oh, they had *lots* of meetings
- *planning* meetings.]

U.S.
Senate Democrats decry voter photo ID bill 22 Sep 2006 Senate
Democrats on Friday said legislation that would require voters to show
proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections was little more
than a poll tax and urged Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to stop
the bill. [Yeah, there's as much chance of *that* happening as a
cat with a long tail in a room filled with rockers. --LRP]

Bush
on Democrats: 'They will raise your taxes' 21 Sep 2006 President
[sic] George W. Bush charged on Thursday that Democrats would raise
taxes if put in control of the U.S. Congress, turning to a familiar
campaign theme as he seeks to stave off Republican losses in November.

Bush
reading program gets failing grade
22 Sep 2006 A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's
billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department
ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.
The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First
program has been beset by conflicts of interest
and willful mismanagement. It suggests the
department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum
schools must use.

Clinton
Effort Reaps Pledges of $7.3 Billion in Global Aid 23 Sep 2006
Yesterday, Mr. Clinton triumphantly announced the results of this year’s
Clinton Global Initiative from a circular stage in a hushed ballroom
[Midtown Manhattan] filled with more than 1,000 people. "As of
now, we have 215 commitments from two times that many people and the
value, my staff swears, is $7.3 billion," he said.

*****

Deal
struck on torture guidelines
22 Sep 2006 The White House and senior Republican politicians have reached
an agreement overnight guidelines for interrogating suspects in the
US-led war on [of] terror, top US
senators and national security counsellor Stephen Hadley has announced.
"Today we have come to announce that those goals have been achieved,"
announced Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Deal
keeps 'potent' anti-terror tools 22 Sep 2006 US President [sic]
George W. Bush has overnight hailed a [Faustian] deal with the US Senate
covering the treatment of terrorism suspects, saying it preserved CIA
interrogations and created military tribunals to try alleged extremists.

U.S.
says detainee bill would clarify access to evidence 21 Sep 2006
A deal reached on rules for questioning and trials of suspected terrorists
held by the United States would put some limits
on the suspects' access to evidence [illegal], a White
House official said on Thursday. "A provision dealing with classified
evidence makes sure that no sensitive intelligence will have to be shared
with terrorists or their lawyers,"
White House National Security Adviser [war criminal] Stephen Hadley
told reporters.

"Details
of the agreement were sketchy."Bush,
GOP rebels reach accord on tribunal laws --Bush urges Congress
to pass bill on interrogating [torturing] terror suspects 21 Sep 2006
The White House and rebellious Senate Republicans announced agreement
Thursday on rules for the interrogation and 'trial' of suspects in the
war on [of] terror.

House
panels OK interrogation, expanded spying bills 21 Sep 2006 House
Republicans handed Dictator Bush narrow victories Wednesday on two broad
anti[pro]-terrorism measures, sending them to likely votes next week.
After a week of intense lobbying from administration officials, Republican
lawmakers on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees pushed through
a measure to expand government surveillance powers, particularly at
the National Security Agency.

House
panel endorses controversial spy bill 20 Sep 2006 Republicans
on a key congressional committee on Wednesday approved legislation they
described as a necessary rewrite to electronic surveillance law but
attacked by Democrats, civil libertarians and technology advocacy groups
as flawed and unconstitutional[just
like the Bush regime itself].

CIA
officers refused to work at secret prisons -FT 21 Sep 2006 The
Bush administration emptied its CIA prisons and transferred top terrorism
suspects to Guantanamo Bay partly because CIA officers refused to carry
out interrogations, the Financial Times reported
on Thursday. CIA officers were concerned they could be prosecuted for
using illegal interrogation techniques and refused to continue their
work until their legal situation could be clarified, the newspaper said
in an article quoting unnamed former spy agency officials.

Germany
under pressure to seek arrest of CIA agents 21 Sep 2006 German
authorities were under mounting pressure on Thursday night to issue
arrest warrants for US agents working for the CIA who allegedly kidnapped
and detained a German national for four months in 2004.

"They
told me one year ago I was innocent. So why did they only release me
now?"Three
years on, Guantánamo detainee, 78, goes home --Hero's welcome
for ex-Mujahideen commander with failing eyesight and a walking frame
22 Sep 2006 It's hard to picture Haji Nasrat Khan as an international
terrorist. For a start, the grey-bearded Afghan can barely walk, shuffling
along on a three-wheeled walking frame. His sight is terrible - he squints
through milky eyes that sometimes roll towards the heavens - while his
helpers have to shout to make themselves heard. And as for his age -
nobody knows for sure, not even Nasrat himself.

Torture
in Iraq worse now than under Saddam Hussein? --U.N. official:
Violence perpetrated by terrorists, government is 'out of hand'
21 Sep 2006 Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam
Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding
rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief
said Thursday. [The (illegitimate) Bush regime in Iraq needs to go
bye-bye. Here, too.]

UN:
Human rights worsening in Iraq 21 Sep 2006 The United Nations
assistance mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has said that human rights violations
in Iraq [Bush's illegitimate dictatorship] are continuing on a massive
scale amid growing violence in all sections of society. Bodies found
in the Baghdad morgue "often bear signs of severe torture including
acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing
skin, broken bones - back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth
and wounds caused by power drills or nails," the report said.

10
'terrorists' executed in Iraq 21 Sep 2006 Iraq's northern Kurdistan
administration has executed 10 people, officially described as terrorists,
sentenced to death for taking part in [US] beheadings and bombings.

$70B
OK'd for Iraq and Afghan war funds 21 Sep 2006 House-Senate
negotiators Thursday approved a new $70 billion infusion for military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as they wrapped up talks on a $447
billion Pentagon funding bill. The additional war funds would bring
the total approved by Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
since Sept. 11, 2001, to more than $500 billion,
with another installment likely to come next spring.

Halliburton
ambush in Iraq caught on video 21 Sep 2006 HalliburtonWatch
has obtained the first video
of an ambush against a Halliburton convoy in Iraq that resulted in the
deaths of three truckers who worked for the company's KBR subsidiary.

U.S.
Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990
Prepared by Nathaniel Hurd 15 Jul 2000 (updated 12 Dec 2001 by Nathaniel
Hurd and Glen Rangwala) U.S. intelligence reported in 1991 that the
U.S. helicopters sold to Iraq in 1983 were
used in 1988 to spray Kurds with chemicals. "Reagan administration
records show that between September and December 1988, 65 licenses were
granted for dual-use technology exports. This averages out as an annual
rate of 260 licenses, more than double the rate for January through
August 1988."

Army
may look to Guard for more relief --Need for troops in Iraq,
Afghanistan greatly exceeds past projections 22 Sep 2006 Strains
on the Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so severe
that Army officials say they may be forced to make greater use of the
National Guard to provide enough troops for overseas deployments.

Clinton
Says Iraq 'Hasn't Helped' War on Terror 21 Sep 2006 Former President
Bill Clinton said the war in Iraq "hasn't helped" the broader
global fight against terrorism. The conflict particularly has strained
the U.S. effort in Afghanistan and the search for al-Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden, Clinton said in an interview in New York.

Thanks
to Bush:Afghan
president sees 15-year fight against opium 21 Sep 2006 Eradicating
Afghanistan's surging opium production and weaning poor farmers from
growing the raw material for heroin will take at least 10 to 15 years,
the country's president said on Thursday.

Antiwar
Push Starts Near White House; 34 Arrested 22 Sep 2006 A group
of ministers, veterans and peace activists attempted to deliver a "declaration
of peace" to the White House yesterday, kicking off a week of vigils
and other activities in 350 communities across the country calling for
the prompt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Restraining
order to prevent attacks on Iran, Syria denied 20 Sep 2006 A
federal judge on Wednesday denied a former Republican congressional
candidate’s [Mary Maxwell] request for a restraining order barring President
[sic] George Bush or Vice President [sic] Richard Cheney from bombing
Iran or Syria.

US
Firms Plan Somali Operations 10 Sep 2006 US security firms have
designed plans to run covert military operations in support of Somali
President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government against the influential
Islamic Courts with CIA and United Nations officials being kept posted
on the schemes, The Observer revealed on Sunday, September 10.

US
threatened post 9/11 attack on ally 22 Sep 2006 The United States
threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it cooperated
with the US-led war on [of] terror after the September 11, 2001
attacks, President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview released overnight.

No
evidence of terrorist attack 22 Sep 2006 There is no evidence
that Joseph Thomas, the first Australian subjected to a control order,
planned a terrorist attack here, according to the head of counter-terrorism
at the Australian Federal Police.

State
counterterrorism officials casting wider Net 12 Sep 2006 Colorado
counterterrorism officials used the 9/11 anniversary to launch an Internet
system that lets ordinary people electronically report "suspicious activity"
- ferreting out possible terrorist bombers or plotters in their midst.
The system lets anybody with Internet access send a report and photos
(via www.ciac.co.gov) documenting anything that strikes them as suspicious.
Officials said suspicious activity may include "unusual requests for
information," "unusual interest in high-risk or symbolic targets," "unusual
purchases or thefts," "suspicious or unattended packages," "suspicious
persons who appear out of place" or people acquiring weapons, uniforms
or fraudulent identification.

States
say new IDs could cost billions 21 Sep 2006 New federal security
rules for issuing driver's licenses could cost $11
billion to implement, raising concerns among states about
paying for the changes, according to a national survey of states released
Thursday.

US
federal judge declares boating illegal in all US navigable waters
(IBI Magazine) 14 Sep 2006 In a rather bizarre
ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge
Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division
of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American
boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other
navigable waters in the US. The shallows of the navigable waters are
no longer open to the public. That, in effect, makes boating illegal
across most of the country.

Venezuela's
Chavez continues anti-Bush harangue 21 Sep 2006 After branding
President [sic] Bush as the devil at the United Nations, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez took his anti-imperialist rhetoric to Harlem on
Thursday and ridiculed the Texan as a puffed-up John Wayne wannabe.
And the crowds -- a 'carefully selected' group of leftists and liberals
-- loved it. ['Carefully selected???' Uh, I think Reuters has the
Harlem meeting confused with GOP 'town meetings,' whereupon dissenters
were arrested by Secret Service thugs for 'No Blood for Oil' bumper
stickers. --LRP]

Bush
bin Laden prepping his next 9/11-style attack:Karl
Rove Promises October Surprise21 Sep 2006 In the past week,
Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise"
to help win the November congressional elections.

"I
realized that the far right has complete control of the party."
Wave
of Party Switchers Hits Republicans--Citing
extremism, more GOPers are joining the Democrats
By Hans Johnson 13 Sep 2006 A trend of local, below-the-radar party-switches
is undercutting Republicans as they face the sternest challenge in a
decade to one-party control of Congress and several state legislatures.

Only
25% in Poll Approve of the Congress 21 Sep 2006 With barely
seven weeks until the midterm elections, Americans have an overwhelmingly
negative view of the Republican-controlled Congress, with substantial
majorities saying that they disapprove of the job it is doing and that
its members do not deserve re-election, according to the latest New
York Times/CBS News poll.

Ehrlich
Wants Paper Ballots For Nov. Vote --State Election Chief
Says Staff Toiling to Fix Electronic Glitches 21 Sep 2006 A week
after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical
glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for
the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and
revert to a paper ballot system for the November election.

Will
The Next Election Be Hacked? --Fresh disasters at the polls
-- and new evidence from an industry insider -- prove that electronic
voting machines can't be trusted. By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 21 Sep 2006
In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as
many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast.
In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised "sleepovers"
before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And
in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in "Was
the 2004 Election Stolen?" [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost
John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and
unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga
County.

Government
Accused of Censorship Over Global Warming --E-Mails
Suggest Officials Stopped Scientist From Talking About Global Warming
20 Sep 2006 Commerce Department officials may have tried to stop a government
scientist from speaking to reporters because of his views on global
warming, a California congressman says. The officials "tried to suppress
a federal scientist from discussing the link between global warming
and hurricanes," according to a letter sent Tuesday from Rep. Henry
Waxman to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Top
E.P.A. Official Rejects Recommendations on Soot
22 Sep 2006 The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator on Thursday
rejected the recommendations of his staff — and an unusual public plea
from independent science advisers — choosing instead to tighten only
one of two standards regulating the amount of lethal particles of soot
in the air.

California
sues car firms for global warming --Six largest manufacturers
creating 'public nuisance' 21 Sep 2006 America's most populous state,
California, opened a new front in its struggle with climate change yesterday
when it announced that it was suing the six largest carmakers in the
US for allegedly contributing to global warming.

WHO
ranks bird flu as top health threat 22 Sep 2006 Bird flu remains
the number one danger facing global public health, the World Health
Organisation warned as a five-day conference on issues facing the western
Pacific region wrapped up today.

*****

Measures
Seek to Restrict Detainees' Access to Courts
--If enacted, lawsuits brought in federal court by about 430 detainees
at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be wiped from the books. 21 Sep 2006
Although the effort has been partly obscured by the highly publicized
wrangling over military commissions for war crimes trials, the Bush
regime and its allies in Congress are trying to use the same legislation
to strip federal courts of their authority
to review the detentions of almost all terrorism suspects.

"The
honor of our nation would be stained by this detestable legislation."
--Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) U.S.
House Panel Opposes Military Tribunals Measure, Sends It 'Unfavorably'
to Full House 20 Sep 2006 A U.S. House committee opposed the
Bush regime's version of legislation to create military tribunals for
terror suspects, while allowing the measure to reach the floor for a
full House vote. In a surprise move, the panel voted 20-17 against the
bill and then took a voice vote to send it "unfavorably'' to the
full House.

"They
gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a Maglite [torch]
in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat."UK
suspects in new claims of torture at Guantanamo 21 Sep 2006
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo
Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series
of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their
human rights lawyers. Documents submitted to the American courts allege
that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards
and beaten and tortured to the point of death.

'High-value'
Guantanamo detainees to face military hearings 20 Sep 2006 The
14 "high-value" terror suspects recently transferred from secret CIA
prisons to Guantanamo Bay are expected to face Combatant Status Review
Tribunal hearings in the next two to three months, according to Navy
Capt. Phil Waddingham, director of the US Defense Department's Office
for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.

Sept.
11 Figure Faces Guantanamo Hearing 20 Sep 2006 Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is expected
to face a hearing at the Guantanamo prison camp within three months,
a military official said Wednesday.

Lawyers
for Guantanamo detainee ask US court to compel release from isolation
19 Sep 2006 Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer, a UK resident
held by the US since 2002, filed a motion
in federal district court Monday seeking Aamer's release from solitary
confinement, arguing that Aamer's almost year-long isolation violates
the Geneva Conventions, which require that prisoners be treated humanely.
According to the court filing, Aamer has been held in solitary confinement
in a 6-by-8 foot cell for 360 days, has been beaten by military guards,
has been exposed to extreme hot and cold temperatures, and has become
mentally unbalanced.

NY
judge orders release of more Guantanamo detainee information
20 Sep 2006 A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Defense
to release documents detailing mistreatment or disciplinary action taken
against detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
other information sought by The Associated Press.

CIA
'refused to operate' secret jails 20 Sep 2006 The Bush regime
had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the
military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because
CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and
run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people
close to the programme. The former officials said the CIA interrogators'
refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier
than it might have wished.

US
general calls for Geneva Conventions definition 20 Sep 2006
The U.S. general who oversees the Guantanamo prison for terrorism suspects
urged Congress on Wednesday to offer clear guidance on what interrogation
techniques are prohibited under international accords barring inhumane
treatment of war prisoners.

The
torture battle royal --The public violation of the Geneva
convention has created a schism between the president and military
By Sidney Blumenthal 21 Sep 2006 President [sic] Bush's torture policy
has provoked perhaps the greatest schism between a president and the
military in American history. From the outside, this battle royal over
his abrogation of the Geneva conventions appears as a shadow war. But
since the supreme court's ruling in Hamdan v Rumsfeld in June, deciding
that Bush's kangaroo court commissions for detainees "violate both the
UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and the four Geneva conventions",
the struggle has been forced into the open.

UK
soldier 'enjoyed' Iraqis' pain 20 Sep 2006 A British soldier
"enjoyed" hearing Iraqis call out in pain as they were kicked and
punched while in a detention centre, a court martial has heard.
British Cpl Donald Payne referred to the noises made as "the choir",
which he "conducted" in front of visitors to the centre, said a prosecuting
QC.

Torture
rampant in Iraqi prisons, streets, UN says 21 Sep 2006 Torture
is rampant in Iraqi [US] detention centers and in the widespread sectarian
[US] killings seen across the country, the United Nations reported on
Wednesday, based on the signs of abuse on victims' bodies. "Detainees'
bodies show signs of beating using electrical cables, wounds in different
parts of their bodies including in the head and genitals, broken bones
of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns," the human
rights office of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq said in a new report.
Bodies found in the Baghdad morgue "often bear signs of severe torture
including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances,
missing skin, broken bones -- back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing
teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails," the report said.

UN:
Nearly 6,600 Iraqi civilians killed in July, August 20 Sep 2006
Violence killed nearly 6,600 Iraqi civilians during July and August,
while more than 8,000 were wounded, according to a report released Wednesday
by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq. More than 20,600 Iraqi civilians
have died in attacks so far this year, according to UNAMI.

UN
Official Warns of Possible Afghanistan Collapse
20 Sep 2006 A United Nations official who recently
called for NATO forces in Afghanistan to help combat the sharply expanding
[US-created] opium trade says the country is becoming increasingly
unstable. VOA's Dan Robinson reports on remarks to U.S. lawmakers by
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime... Noting
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai's warning last year that either
Afghanistan destroys opium or opium will destroy Afghanistan, Costa
says the country is dangerously close to the second option.

NATO
to Send Additional Troops to Afghanistan 21 Sep 2006 NATO countries
are sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan to help battle a surprisingly
violent Taliban resurgence in the south -- the alliance's first test
in ground combat for "a long, long time," NATO's top commander said
yesterday.

Deadly
harvest: The Lebanese fields sown with cluster bombs
--Lebanese villagers must risk death in fields
'flooded' with more than a million Israeli cluster bombs - or leave
crops to rot 18 Sep 2006 The war in Lebanon has not ended.
Every day, some of the million bomblets which were fired by Israeli
artillery during the last three days of the conflict kill four people
in southern Lebanon and wound many more. The casualty figures will rise
sharply in the next month as villagers begin the harvest, picking olives
from trees whose leaves and branches hide bombs that explode at the
smallest movement. Lebanon's farmers are caught in a deadly dilemma:
to risk the harvest, or to leave the produce on which they depend to
rot in the fields.

Venezuelan
President Chavez Calls Bush the 'Devil' in UN Speech 20 Sep
2006 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President [sic] George
W. Bush "the devil'' and "world tyrant'' in a speech
to the United Nations General Assembly in which he urged the member
governments to fight U.S. domination. "The devil came here yesterday,''
Chavez, 52, said in remarks that included accusations that the U.S.
is plotting to overthrow him and that the UN is helpless to combat the
threat posed by U.S. power. He said the podium in the General Assembly
hall still "smells of sulphur today,'' a reference to what is termed
the devil's element in mythology.

President
Hugo Chavez Delivers Remarks at the U.N. General Assembly CQ
Transcripts Wire 20 Sep 2006 Speaker: Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live
the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing
up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are
shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Islamists
to Train Students for Preparation of War 19 Sep 2006 The Islamic
Courts headquartered in Mogadishu have for the first time announced
they would open training camps for Mogadishu's public school pupils
for preparation of holy war against the foreign 'peacekeepers' expected
to arrive in Somalia early October.

American
CIA Explosive Experts Are Due to Arrive in Somalia in 24 Hours
20 Sep 2006 The United States government was quick to respond the Somali
transitional government's appeal to find international help over probing
the double car bombings that engulfed the lives of at least 11 and injured
dozens. [Yes, the CIA is going there to investigate their own bombings.]

Courts
set to admit wiretap evidence --Phone-taps key to prosecuting
criminals and terrorists, says attorney general 21 Sep 2006 (UK) The
attorney general [Lord Goldsmith] has thrown his weight decisively behind
the use of intercept evidence in court, making it highly likely that
the ban on phonetap evidence will be lifted.

Bill
changed to allow warrantless wiretapping on Americans when attack 'imminent'
20 Sep 2006 On Wednesday, House Republicans moved closer to the Bush
regime's position on its domestic wiretapping program. Rep. Heather
Wilson's bill initially would have given legal status to Bush's domestic
surveillance program only after an attack. Instead, her bill now would
grant the administration's plea to allow wiretapping against Americans
without warrants when it is believed a terrorist attack is "imminent."

State
pushes on in NSA probe 19 Sep 2006 (VT) State regulators will
not back down from investigations into whether phone companies improperly
granted government access to their customers' records, despite arguments
from the companies that the inquiries could violate national secrecy
rules.

DHS
plans data systems to supplement surveillance 20 Sep 2006 In
addition to surveillance, the Homeland Security Department intends to
deploy other major IT systems as part of its Secure Border Initiative
strategy to better control access to the U.S. borders. The SBI includes
provisions for guards, funding for beds to
hold people[KBR's detention
centers] caught crossing the border, fencing and roads and a
comprehensive border surveillance system incorporating sensors and cameras.

Boeing
wins multibillion-dollar homeland security contract --Plan
calls for towers, cameras, sensors 20 Sep 2006 Aerospace and defense
giant Boeing Co. has won a multibillion-dollar contract to revamp how
the United States guards about 6,000 miles of border in an attempt to
'curb illegal immigration,' [keep us in, when Dictator Bush declares
martial law after his next false-flag terror alert] congressional sources
said yesterday. Boeing's proposal relied heavily on a network of 1,800
towers, most of which would need to be erected along the borders with
Mexico and Canada. Each tower would be equipped with a variety of sensors,
including cameras and heat and motion detectors.

Teens
drive stolen car onto anti-terrorism base 20 Sep 2006 Two teenage
car thieves drove a stolen car on Wednesday without being stopped onto
the U.S. military base that commands much of the war on [of]
terror [MacDill Air Force Base], triggering an investigation into the
security breach, police and military officials said.

Air
Controllers Chafe at Plan to Cut Staff 20 Sep 2006 (Dallas)
A drive by the Federal Aviation Administration to cut the number of
air traffic controllers nationally by 10 percent below negotiated levels,
and even more sharply at places like the busy radar center here, is
producing tension, anger and occasional shows of defiance among controllers.

Suits
Say U.S. Impeded Audits for Oil Leases 21 Sep 2006 Four government
auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say
the Interior Department suppressed their efforts
to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating
the government. The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits
that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent
a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency.

Exxon
Mobil Accused of Misleading Public 20 Sep 2006 Britain's leading
scientific academy has accused oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. of misleading
the public about global warming and funding groups that undermine the
scientific consensus on climate change.

Abramoff-linked
duo visited White House dozens of times 20 Sep 2006 Republican
activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed totaled more than 100 visits
to the Bush White House, according to documents released Wednesday that
provide the first official accounting of the access and influence the
two presidential allies have enjoyed.

Ney
eligible for pension after prison
--Reforms he urged didn’t pass; he still can get benefits 20
Sep 2006 Even though he voted four months ago to deny pension benefits
to members of Congress convicted of a felony relating to their official
duties, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) will
be eligible to receive his congressional pension after he serves his
prison sentence.

House
passes bill to make voters show ID 20 Sep 2006 The House voted
Wednesday to require Americans to show proof of citizenship in order
to vote. "This bill is tantamount to a 21st century poll tax," said
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "It will disenfranchise large
number of legal voters."

Bush
anti-terror plan edges forward
19 Sep 2006 President [sic] Bush's stalled anti[pro]-terrorism agenda
edged forward Tuesday, with a rebellious House member rewriting her
bill on wiretaps more to his liking and maverick Senate Republicans
reopening talks over how to handle detainees. Rep. Heather Wilson
(R-NM), offered to substitute her original bill on giving legal status
to Bush's domestic surveillance program with a bill that would grant
a key administration request: allow wiretapping
on Americans in the event of an "imminent" terrorist attack.

Gonzales:
ISPs must keep records on users 19 Sep 2006 Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday stepped up his efforts to lobby for federal
laws requiring Internet providers to keep track of what their customers
do online. Gonzales asked senators to adopt "data retention" legislation
that would likely force Internet providers to keep customer logs for
at least a year or two.

Revealed:
the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to use 18 Sep
2006 Details emerged yesterday about the seven interrogation techniques
the CIA is seeking to be allowed to apply to terror suspects. Several
of those techniques chime with information gleaned about interrogation
methods used against some serious terror suspects.

Bush,
Republicans Hash Out Terror Interrogation Legislation
19 Sep 2006 The White House and dissident Senate Republicans began a
fresh round of talks Tuesday over how to treat and prosecute terrorism
suspects. President [sic] George W. Bush is having difficulty gaining
approval for his plan because it would legalize interrogation techniques
many see as torture including mock-drowning,
stripping, and hooding of detainees. [Yes, the 'compromise'
reached by Congress will permit torture for one hour sessions instead
of one and a half hour sessions. --LRP]

Dissidents'
Detainee Bill May Face Filibuster --Frist Warns GOP Opponents
of Bush's Proposal They Must Accept Two Key Provisions 20 Sep 2006
Senate Majority Leader Bill ['Cat Torturer,'
soon to be 'People Torturer'] Frist signaled yesterday that
he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with
the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade
a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President
[sic] Bush. Frist's chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents'
bill "dead."

Canada
may protest U.S. treatment of tortured man 19 Sep 2006 A formal
Canadian protest to Washington appeared to be planned on Tuesday as
the result of an official inquiry into the U.S. deportation in 2002
of a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was subsequently tortured.

Red
Cross delegation will visit detainees at Guantanamo 19 Sep 2006
A Red Cross delegation will travel next week to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
to meet with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and 13 other reputed terrorists recently
transferred to U.S. military custody after years of imprisonment in
secret CIA jails.

Torture
Is Torture--Bush's
'Program' Disgraces All Americans
By Eugene Robinson 19 Sep 2006 It's past time to stop mincing words.
The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks
to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques,
and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program..."
It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort
of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle
for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide,
and they don't debate torture, either.

British
soldier is first to admit war crime 20 Sep 2006 A British soldier
has become the first person to plead guilty to war crimes. Cpl Donald
Payne admitted inhumanely treating civilians in Basra four months after
the official end of the war.

Congress
Considering Strip Searching Students --Congress to vote on HR
5295 Tuesday or Wednesday 18 Sep 2006 (drugpolicy.org) The Student Teacher
Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) is a sloppily written bill that would require
any school receiving federal funding (essentially every public school)
to adopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conduct
random, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, for essentially
any reason they want. These searches could be pat-downs, bag searches,
or strip searches depending on how far school administrators wanted
to go.

Iraq
most dangerous place for journalists: study 20 Sep 2006 Journalists
are being killed at a pace of more than three a month worldwide, with
Iraq the deadliest place for media to work, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said on Wednesday.

Iraqi
journalist killed in western Iraq 19 Sep 2006 [US] Gunmen shot
dead an Iraqi television journalist in the western province of Anbarover
the weekend, the TV station he worked for reported on Tuesday. The Journalistic
Freedom Observatory, a U.S.-based committee on protection of journalists,
condemned Karboli's assassination,saying that "the goal of killing
journalists, especially in the restive areas, is to hide the facts of
what is happening there."

Halliburton
unlawfully sent civilian truckers into combat in Iraq
19 Sep 2006 (HalliburtonWatch.org) Former Halliburton employees in Iraq
told a Senate committee yesterday that the company's KBR subsidiary
(1) knowingly puts unarmed civilian truck drivers into extremely dangerous
war zones in violation of military law, (2) hires employees through
a Cayman Island subsidiary in order to avoid U.S. laws, (3) deliberately
overcharges U.S. taxpayers "in true Enron-style" for recreational services
provided to the troops, and (4) escapes punishment because the Bush
administration successfully circumvents "whistleblower" laws that expose
unscrupulous contractors.

Ties
to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq --Early
U.S. Missteps in the Green Zone 17 Sep 2006 Adapted from "Imperial Life
in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Knopf 2006 --After the
fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to
participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all
manner of Americans... But before they could go to Baghdad, they had
to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon... O'Beirne's staff
posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did
you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president
is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the
U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe
v. Wade.

Iraq
bombings kill at least 28, wound dozens --Separate attacks hit
city in northern Iraq and Baghdad, police say 20 Sep 2006 Separate bombings
near an army base and a police building killed at least 28 people and
wounded at least 56, Iraqi police said Wednesday.

Top
commander says U.S. may boost forces in Iraq 19 Sep 2006 The
U.S. military is likely to maintain and may even increase its force
of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring, the top American
commander in the region said Tuesday in one of the gloomiest assessments
yet of when troops may come home.

Iran
Tells U.N. Nuclear Program Peaceful
19 Sep 2006 Taking the stage at the U.N. General Assembly hours after
President [sic] Bush, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused
the United States of having double standards by criticizing his country's
nuclear program while maintaining its own nuclear weapons arsenal. "The
question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States
or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council,
commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which
of the U.N. organs can take them into account?," he asked.

During
U.N. talks, Bush hints at Iran sanctions --Bush to try persuading
skeptical leaders about his [insane] Mideast policy 19 Sep 2006 Ahead
of his speech to other world leaders gathered here, President [sic]
Bush on Tuesday said Iran must immediately begin negotiations on its
nuclear program and warned Tehran that delay would bring consequences.

US
may ban sale of cluster bombs to Israel 20 Sep 2006 The discovery
of hundreds of US-made cluster bombs among the tens of thousands of
unexploded munitions carpeting the south of Lebanon, has led to calls
on Washington to impose a moratorium on sales of the weapons to Israel.

Thailand's
military ousts prime minister
20 Sep 2006 Thailand's army commander ousted Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra in a military coup, while Shinawatra was in New York, circling
his offices with tanks, declaring martial law and revoking the constitution.
Already, the military has declared a provisional government, instituted
martial law, and announced it will abrogate Thailand's constitution.

Terror
accused to stand trial
20 Sep 2006 Two Melbourne men, including one who allegedly promised
Osama bin Laden he would commit jihad, will stand trial over terrorism
charges. Shane Kent, 29, of Meadow Heights, and Aimen Joud, 21, of Hoppers
Crossing, allegedly produced a propaganda video for al-Qaeda called
Such as the Messengers Tested.

US
jails 'powerless as terror trainees recruited' 19 Sep 2006 The
US' prisons are becoming major breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists,
but states and local authorities are too cash-strapped to prevent or
monitor recruiting, a new report says today. Additionally, state and
local prison officials struggle to track radical behaviour changes [?!?]
of inmates or religious counsellors.

War
on terror: the boardgame 20 Sep 2006 UK-based TerrorBull Games
says it has created 5000 copies of the $75 War on Terror: The Boardgame,
which are due to go on sale online from late October. A company press
release says: "Players liberate the world while bickering over oil,
funding and fighting terrorism, forcing regime changes and discovering
those elusive WMD. All the time alliances waver: old enemies become
friends, while previous allies turn bad guys with one casual flick of
the Axis of Evil spinner."

Flippant
e-mail to 'new government' costs scientist his job 19 Sep 2006
Longtime federal government scientist Andrew Okulitch was outraged when
he received a memo from the office of Natural Resources Minister Gary
Lunn ordering him to refer to "Canada's New Government" instead of the
"Government of Canada," and he admits his response was undiplomatic.
However, the 64-year-old Saltspring Island resident never expected to
be fired from his role as scientist emeritus by e-mail one hour later.

Congressman
Sherrod Brown Proudly Earns Backbone Award
By Patrick Carano 19 Sep 2006 On September 17th Congressman Sherrod
Brown from Ohio’s 13th district, a host of local and statewide candidates,
and numerous labor leaders gathered in Tallmadge, Ohio’s historic circle
district for a Democratic Unity Rally... The afternoon culminated in
the presentation of the Backbone Award to Rep. Brown by Tim Carpenter,
National Director of PDA on behalf of the Backbone Campaign. The Backbone
Campaign chose Rep. Brown for its prestigious award because of his monumental
efforts to defeat CAFTA in the face of strong support of the bill by
the Bush administration and the Republican Congress.

US
deficit widens more than forecast 19 Sep 2006 The US current
account deficit widened more than forecast last quarter to the second-largest
on record as the trade gap expanded and more interest was paid to overseas
investors, a government report showed.

*****

White
House Offers New Proposal on Interrogations 19 Sep 2006 White
House officials sent Congress a revised proposal last night on rules
governing the interrogation of detainees at secret CIA prisons... Henry
J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee,
indicated he may ask to examine portions of the bill pertaining to international
treaties, leadership aides acknowledged. Hyde
would also like to examine a section of the bill suspending detainees'
right of habeas corpus, a provision that civil libertarians strongly
criticize but that so far has not been controversial in Congress.
A White House official expressed confidence that House GOP leaders will
bring to a vote a bill of the president's [sic] liking.

"it
seems torture is not just a random thing. It's a policy and everyone
is required to follow it."New
Leaders, Similar Story at Iraq's Abu Ghraib 16 Sep 2006 Fresh
allegations of brutality are being reported from inside the walls of
Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which was transferred from U.S. military to
Iraqi government control on September 1st. Sa'dik al-Hasnawi, who heads
up Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's offices in the southern city of
Diwaniya, told OneWorld, "it seems torture is not just a random thing.
It's a policy and everyone is required to follow it." Hasnawi has been
interviewing inmates as they're released from Abu Ghraib.

UK
government accused of collusion in Guantánamo war crimes 18
Sep 2006 More than 100 senior doctors today accused the government of
colluding in war crimes by refusing to give medical aid to British residents
detained at Guantánamo Bay... Last year the New England Journal of Medicine
reported that psychiatrists and psychologists had been involved in coercive
interrogation tactics being used on detainees at the camp since 2002.

Canadians
Fault U.S. for Its Role in Torture Case 19 Sep 2006 A government
commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer [Maher
Arar] of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted
Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria,
where he was imprisoned and tortured.

Report
slams RCMP for giving erroneous information on Arar to U.S.
19 Sep 2006 The RCMP passed misleading, inaccurate and unfair information
to U.S. authorities that "very likely" led to the arrest of Maher Arar
and his deportation to face torture in Syria, a public inquiry concludes.
In a report released Monday, Justice Dennis O'Connor absolved Arar of
any suspicion of terrorist activity and urged the federal government
to offer financial compensation for his suffering.

Bubble-Boy
Bush Defends Torture By Bill Gallagher 19 Sep 2006 Give torture
a chance. And grant me a law to justify anything I have done or will
do... Bush looked like a man possessed at a ranting, spit-spewing news
conference last Friday. Bush rose into rapture, trying to sell his mad
plan for fascist rule in America, urging us to shed those old-fashioned
protections in the Bill of Rights, so we can "protect the nation," and
he can use the fight to attempt to save his political hide in the process.
Bush can only function with single-party rule.

Bush
demands US Congress pass bill sanctioning torture of detainees
By Joe Kay 16 Sep 2006 President [sic] George Bush held a news conference
on Friday at which he demanded that Congress pass a bill sanctioning
interrogation methods of detainees that are defined by international
law as torture and banned by the Geneva Conventions... The CIA prisons,
which Bush openly defends, are themselves illegal under international
law, since the International Red Cross is denied access to them. Those
held in these gulags have been subjected to what Bush terms "alternative
interrogation methods"—a euphemism for torture.

New
rule on government spying powers goes to Congress--Compromise
measure would give government more leeway to listen in 18
Sep 2006 Five years after President [sic] Bush launched the National
Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, Congress is expected
to take up a measure this week that would strengthen the president's
authority to conduct domestic espionage.

Iraq
in danger of civil war, warns Annan ahead of crucial UN assembly
19 Sep 2006 The UN secretary general warned yesterday that Iraq was
in danger of sliding into anarchy and civil war. Addressing an international
aid conference at the UN, Kofi Annan said: "If current patterns of alienation
and violence persist much longer, there is a grave danger that the Iraqi
state will break down, possibly in the midst of full-scale civil war."

Suicide
attacks, bombs kill 62 in Iraq 19 Sep 2006 At least 62 people
were killed around Iraq, 21 of them in a suicide attack on people waiting
for their butane gas ration cards [?!?] in the northern city
of Tal Afar.

Bush's
bitch Merkel and the navy gathering in the Lebanon coast By
Zam 18 Sep 2006 1. A great navy gathering is in the Lebanon coast...
2. Troops of the NATO member countries are in Lebanon below UN mandate.
3. The bitch of Bush, Merkel, said, after Germany's Cabinet approved
the deployment of warships to Lebanon as part of the expanded United
Nations peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.

Rumsfeld
adviser resigns as Pentagon shake-up looms 18 Sep 2006 The Pentagon's
top special operations policy-maker [Thomas W. O'Connell, assistant
secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict
(SOLIC)] is quitting in a move that several Bush administration sources
say is the first negative fallout from a major reorganization of advisers
in the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Labour
admits: we made mistakes on Afghanistan
--Strength and determination of Taliban were misjudged, says defence
secretary 19 Sep 2006 The defence secretary, Des Browne, will admit
today that Britain and its Nato allies seriously underestimated the
strength of the Taliban and the violent resistance faced by western
forces in Afghanistan.

Four
Canadians killed in Afghan suicide bombing 18 Sep 2006 The first
of four Canadian servicemen killed by a bicycle bomber targeting troops
in southern Afghanistan was identified on Monday as a Manitoba-based
soldier. An undisclosed number of Canadian soldiers and at least 27
Afghan civilians were also wounded in the blast in the Kafir Band village,
located in the Kandahar province district of Panjwaii.

Thanks
to Bush:Taliban:
500 Suicide Bombers Ready to Attack 18 Sep 2006 Rahimullah Yusufzai
Reports: In a rare interview, the Taliban's top military commander told
ABC News he has 500 suicide bombers at his disposal and could launch
them at any time. Speaking by satellite telephone from an undisclosed
location, Mulla Dadullah Akhund told ABC News the suicide bombers will
target Kabul, the capital, because it is the headquarters for U.S. and
NATO forces. "They attacked us. We didn't go to the U.S. to fight
them. We are fighting for our religion and homeland," he said.

Africa
key to Pentagon counterterrorism [terrorism] strategy 14 Sep
2006 Nearly five years after the 'fall' [?!?] of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Africa has emerged as a leading front in a U.S. military campaign to
deny [foment] al Qaeda [al CIAduh]
a new safe haven in the continent's vast, hard-to-govern regions. Small
groups of special forces, known as A-teams and often numbering less
than a dozen soldiers, have begun traversing the hinterlands of more
than a dozen countries in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and Sahara regions.

National
Guard to Stay in New Orleans Through December 18 Sep 2006 National
Guard troops and state police will patrol the city through December,
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday at a summit of law enforcement officials
and crime experts called to address a spate of [Blackwater's?]
killings marring the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

CCTV
gets a voice in English town (London) Big Brother - in the form
of closed-circuit television cameras - is not only watching people misbehaving
in one English town, it is also telling them off. Municipal council
officials in Middlesbrough, northeast England, have fitted microphones
to seven CCTV cameras in the town centre that yell at people up to no
good.[That's seven CCTV cameras that need
to be *unplugged.*]

'Universal'
ID Card Part of Federal Security Upgrades 18 Sep 2006 New identification
cards ["super CAC" ID cards] to be issued to Defense Department
employees beginning next month will help standardize workforce identification
and security access systems across the government, a senior Defense
Department official said here Sept. 15.

Armed
man crashes through Capitol barricade 18 Sep 2006 An armed man
ran through the hallways of the U.S. Capitol after crashing his vehicle
on the Capitol grounds Monday in the worst [?!?] breach of security
since a gunman killed two police officers eight years ago.

Bush
administration names cyber security czar 18 Sep 2006 The U.S.
Department of Homeland Security named its first cyber security czar
[Gregory Garcia] on Monday, filing a job that had been vacant since
it was created a year ago.

Film
Shows Youths Training to Fight for Jesus --New Documentary
Features Controversial Bible Camp, Evangelical Movement 17 Sep 2006
An in-your-face documentary out this weekend is raising eyebrows, raising
hackles and raising questions about evangelizing to young people. Speaking
in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and
worshipping a picture of President [sic] Bush[*puke*] -- these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky
Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the
provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."

Mega
barf alert!U.S.
Uploads Anti-Drug Videos to YouTube 18 Sep 2006 The Bush administration
is taking its fight against illegal drugs to YouTube, the trendy Internet
video service that already features clips of wacky, drug-induced behavior
and step-by-step instructions for growing marijuana plants. [YouTube
should block any uploads by the Bush dictatorship.]

Impeachment
Referendum on Wisconsin Rapids Ballots
18 Sep 2006 Supporters of a referendum on whether President [sic] Bush
and Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney should be impeached gathered more
than 900 signatures -- enough to get the question printed on the ballot.

"Hotel
Minibar" Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines 18 Sep 2006
By Ed Felten The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine
— the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and
is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with
a standard key that is widely available on the Internet. On Wednesday
we did a live demo for our Princeton Computer Science colleagues of
the vote-stealing software described in our paper
and video. Afterward, Chris Tengi, a technical staff member, asked
to look at the key that came with the voting machine. He noticed an
alphanumeric code printed on the key, and remarked that he had a key
at home with the same code on it. The next day he brought in his key
and sure enough it opened the voting machine.

Major
State Union Switches to Lamont --AFSCME Council 4 Drops Lieberman,
Citing Movement Toward Bush Policies 18 Sep 2006 One of Connecticut's
largest labor unions has dropped its endorsement of U.S. Sen. Joseph
I. Lieberman and switched its support to Democratic primary winner Ned
Lamont.

Gore:
Global Warming an Immediate Crisis 19 Sep 2006 President Al
Gore on Monday called for immediate action to stop global warming, calling
the phenomenon a "climate crisis'' that demands attention from
American leaders.

Hydropower,
Geothermal Research Could Disappear In 2007 15 Sep 2006 The
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is quitting the hydropower and geothermal
power research business — if Congress will let it. Declaring them "mature
technologies" that need no further funding, the Bush administration
in its FY 2007 budget request eliminates hydropower and geothermal research,
venerable programs with roots in the energy crises of the 1970s.

Mercury
Contamination Moves Beyond Fish
--'Every Link of the Food Chain Affected' a
New Report Says 18 Sep 2006 Mercury contamination is making
its way into nearly every habitat in the United States, not just oceans,
according to a report that the National Wildlife Federation will release
Tuesday. The problem with high mercury levels in certain types of fish
has been well documented, resulting in 46 states issuing advisories
for pregnant women and children to avoid eating certain types of fish.
But this is the first report to expose the problem in such a wide
variety of species, 40 to be exact.

Stubborn
Calif. Fire Doubles in Size 19 Sep 2006 Teams of firefighters
hiked into the remote wilderness along the Los Angeles-Ventura County
line on Monday to fight a stubborn, two-week-old wildfire that has scorched
more than 125 square miles of chaparral and timber.

*****

U.S.
War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000
--A Global network of U.S overseas prisons keeps 14,000 detainees
beyond the reach of established law. 17 Sep 2006 In the few short
years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the
U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its
islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of
established law. Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight,
grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have
passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

U.S.
holds AP photographer in Iraq 5 mos 17 Sep 2006 The U.S. military
in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months,
accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or
permitting a public hearing. "We want the rule of law to prevail. He
either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not
acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive
officer. "We've come to the conclusion that
this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any
military procedure."

"We're
transferring things that are military today into a civil implementation."Firms
Vie to Provide the Future of Border Security 18 Sep 2006 The
Department of Homeland Security is expected within days to name a winner
in a competition that could permanently change the way the United States
conducts surveillance, apprehension and detention operations
along its northern and southern boundaries. Overall, the proposals lean
heavily on technology developed for the battlefield. "We're transferring
things that are military today into a civil implementation," said Bruce
Walker, a Northrop Grumman vice president who has led the California
company's efforts. [See: KBR
awarded $385M Homeland Security contract for U.S. detention centers
24 Jan 2006.]

Attorney
general warns US on torture bill 18 Sep 2006 (UK) The attorney
general [Lord Goldsmith] warned the US at the weekend that its bill
to try to limit its obligations under the Geneva convention while interrogating
and trying detainees risked international condemnation.

CIA
asks for 'legal clarity' on torture 16 Sep 2006 CIA director
Michael Hayden said overnight he needed to know with greater clarity
what is lawful under the Geneva Conventions for interrogations of key
Al-Qaeda [Al-CIAduh] suspects to continue. In a message to CIA employees,
Hayden said a secret CIA program in which "an alternative set of procedures"
was used to interrogate key Al-Qaeda detainees could not resume unless
Congress defines the CIA's responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions.
[Should an 'alternative set of procedures'
be used to interrogate key members of the Bush administration to find
out was (actually) behind the 9/11 terror attacks?]

Powell
leads the right in a Bush-whack
By Andrew Sullivan 17 Sep 2006 In the Senate, the president’s bid to
legalise torture and ad hoc military tribunals was stopped not by the
Democrats but by four key Republican senators... It is hard to dismiss
[John] McCain and [Colin] Powell as men who do not know a thing about
war or torture. One was tortured by the Vietcong;
another actually won a war in Iraq. The contrast with the
current White House is almost painful to observe... [Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina] is also a former military lawyer and, along with
the entire legal leadership in the US military, opposes Bush's military
kangaroo courts.

Compromise
Called Possible on Interrogations 18 Sep 2006 President [sic]
Bush’s national security adviser signaled on Sunday that he was seeking
a compromise with the Republican senators who are rebelling against
the administration’s proposal to explicitly permit certain severe interrogation
practices [torture] against terrorism suspects.

Doctors
demand an end to British 'collusion' over Guantanamo Bay 18
Sep 2006 Senior doctors have condemned the Government’s failure to provide
medical aid to British residents held at Guantanamo Bay. In a letter
to The Times today, 120 signatories from the medical profession
call for an independent investigation to determine the medical needs
of the detainees, and criticises the "shameful" refusal of
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to respond to a request by the British
Medical Association to send a team of doctors to Cuba.

Doctors
at Guantanamo (Letter to Editor, The Times) 18 Sep 2006 Recently
the BMA proposed
that an independent group of British doctors visit Guantanamo to assess
their medical treatment... The Foreign Office has refused to act on
this request. ...[G]iven that the US military has awarded medals for
doctors involved in the care of Guantanamo detainees (for
medical treatment that would warrant a criminal investigation if carried
out in Britain), we have no confidence in the proposed investigation
of the recent suicides. It is clear that an independent scrutiny is
urgently required by physicians outside the US military. The silence
of the Foreign Office is shameful and reflects the collusion of this
country in a war crime.

Spy
Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs --Contractors, many of
them former employees, are doing sensitive work, such as handling agents.
A review of the practice has been ordered. 17 Sep 2006 At the National
Counterterrorism Center — the agency created two years ago to prevent
another attack like Sept. 11 — more than half of the employees are not
U.S. government analysts or terrorism experts. Instead, they are outside
contractors. Contractors also are turning up in increasing numbers in
clandestine facilities around the world.

'Death
of a President' drama wins film award 18 Sep 2006 A controversial
Channel 4 docudrama in which President [sic] George Bush is assassinated
has received a prestigious award at the Toronto Film Festival. Death
of a President, by the British director Gabriel Range, was awarded the
International Critics' Prize on Saturday. [It needs to spawn a sequel
- 'Death of a Vice President.']

Blasts
in Kirkuk Kill 26; Police Bureau Destroyed 18 Sep 2006 A wave
of seven suicide car bombs and explosions rocked Kirkuk on Sunday, killing
at least 26 people and wounding 85 others, police said. The northern
city declared a state of emergency and hastily put up dozens of checkpoints
to thwart further attacks, police Maj. Jalal Mahmood Aras said.

U.S.
denies Baghdad trench plans 16 Sep 2006 The U.S. military denied
reports on Saturday that Iraq plans to dig a giant ring of trenches
[LOL!] around the city of Baghdad. Iraq's Interior Ministry announced
earlier this week that it plans to set up 28 checkpoints that would
allow controlled access to the city, while closing off other roads as
part of a security crackdown.

Baghdad
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier 17 Sep 2006 An American soldier was
killed Sept. 15 when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by a
roadside bomb south of Baghdad, according to U.S. officials.

Nuclear
foes start talking at summit18 Sep 2006 Developing countries
wrapped up a summit in Cuba with North Korea claiming US threats drove
it to acquire deterrent nuclear weapons, and Iran winning solid support
in its nuclear row.

Global
popular power
--The struggle for justice and prosperity in the Arab world and everywhere
depends upon popular resistance to US imperialism and its local clients,
writes George Galloway 14 Sep 2006 Do the ultimate perpetrators of the
killings [in Iraq and Afghanistan], as they sit behind their mahogany
desks in the White House and Downing Street, imagine that the rest of
us have not noticed how they do not deem those Arab and Muslim dead
worthy of the same grief as attends their own? Do they think we have
not noticed how they refuse even to count the number killed in Iraq?
Did they believe that the pornographic images
of Abu Ghraib would be discounted? Did George Bush and Tony
Blair delude themselves into thinking they could whet the knife that
Israel plunged into Lebanon without being seen as accomplices to war
crimes?

Support
Our Boys in Uniform By Suzy Menkes (The New York Times Style
Section) 17 Sep 2006 You know that a new fashion is on the march when
Miuccia Prada sends out a paramilitary helmet covered in fur... And
if you want heroic, you could do worse than Napoleon Bonaparte as a
fashion role model. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana seem to be obsessed
with Bonaparte’s strut, bringing brass buttons to their smart tailoring
and even favoring the emperor’s old clothes (and Josephine’s Empire
dresses) for the Dolce & Gabbana women’s collection.

Mexican
left in parallel government 17 Sep 2006 Supporters of Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico's left-wing presidential 'runner-up' [winner],
voted on Saturday to make him the leader of a parallel government. Lopez
Obrador is to be sworn into his new post as "legitimate president" on
November 20. [That's because Lopez Obrador *is*
the legitimate president!]

US
warns Nicaraguans not to back Ortega [Someone please swat Bush's
busy bees, once and for all.] 14
Sep 2006 The US ambassador to Nicaragua has issued a vigorous warning
to this small Central American country’s electors against supporting
Daniel Ortega, the veteran leftwing Sandinista leader and the frontrunner
in November’s presidential election.

Chavez
proposes creation of 'Bank of the South' 17 Sep 2006 On Friday,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has proposed the creation of a bank
of south-American nations to use international reserves for financing
the development of these countries.

Next
Attack Imminent: Muslims ordered to leave the United States
(Canada Free Press and Northeast Intelligence) 16 Sep 2006 Urgent news
from Abu Dawood, the newly appointed commander of the al Qaeda [al
CIAduh] forces in Afghanistan: Final
preparations have been made for the American Hiroshima, a major attack
on the U. S. Muslims living in the United States should leave the country
without further warning. The attack will be commandeered by Adnan el
Shukrijumah ("Jaffer Tayyer" or "Jafer the Pilot"), a naturalized American
citizen, who was raised in Brooklyn and educated in southern Florida.

Clerics
'teach secret jihad' [?!?] 18 Sep 2006 Islamic clerics in Sydney
and Melbourne are using covert tactics to preach martyrdom and jihad
to young followers, recruiting them under the guise of classes teaching
the Koran. Singapore-based terrorism analyst Rohan Gunaratna told The
Australian that despite their denials and stronger terror laws, religious
leaders in the two cities continued to preach violence to impressionable
followers, though they now did it away from their mainstream teachings.

Muslim
leaders rubbish terror claims 18 Sep 2006 Muslim leaders have
rubbished claims by terror 'expert' Rohan Gunaratna that Islamic clerics
in Sydney and Melbourne are teaching jihad in secret. The chair of the
government's Muslim advisory committee, Dr Ameer Ali, says if Dr Gunaratna
has such information he should hand it to authorities.

Bush
terror team prepping for GOP October Surprise:Agencies
hold mock-terror drill at mall 17 Sep 2006 (Boston, MA) Federal,
state, and local agencies this morning staged the largest anti-terror
drill in New England since Sept. 11, 2001, simulating the response to
a mock detonation of a [Bush bin Laden] radioactive "dirty bomb" in
the food court of the CambridgeSide Galleria. Hundreds of firefighters,
military, paramedics, and police converged on the mall at dawn, creating
a massive triage and decontamination center to treat people acting the
roles of exposed and wounded in the exercise.

Simulated
Terror Drills Held Throughout Boston 17 Sep 2006 Massachusetts
is making great efforts to prepare for the worst in the event of a [GOP]
terrorist attack. Simulated anti-terrorism drills were held on Sunday
at various locations throughout Boston. The event is called "Operation
Poseidon."

Big
Brother is shouting at you 16 Sep 2006 Big Brother is not only
watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking'
CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming
offenders into acting more responsibly.

Project
BioShield: a $5.6 billion Bush boondoggle for pharma-terrorists
18 Sep 2006 The last of the anthrax-laced letters [traced to Fort
Detrick, sent by a Cheney Halliburton troll to strongarm senators
into voting for the 'Patriot' Act] was still making its way through
the mail in late 2001 when top Bush administration officials reached
an obvious conclusion: the nation desperately needed to expand its medical
stockpile to prepare for another biological attack. The result was Project
BioShield, a $5.6 billion effort to exploit the country’s top medical
and scientific brains and fill an emergency medical cabinet with new
drugs and vaccines for a host of threats. But the project, critics say,
has largely failed to deliver.

Inner
Circle Taking More of C.D.C. Bonuses 17 Sep 2006 Top officials
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received premium bonuses
in recent years at the expense of scientists and others who perform
much of the agency's scientific work, agency records show. Those inside
the office of the centers' director, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, have benefited
the most, the records show

IRS
Orders All Saints to Yield Documents on '04 Political Races
--Antiwar remarks at All Saints in Pasadena were made two days before
the 2004 election. The church is ordered to hand over records. 16
Sep 2006 Stepping up its probe of allegedly improper [?!?] campaigning
by churches, the Internal Revenue Service on Friday ordered a liberal
Pasadena parish to turn over all the documents and e-mails it produced
during the 2004 election year with references to political candidates.
All Saints Episcopal Church and its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, have
until Sept. 29 to present the sermons, newsletters and electronic communications.

Judges
could be fired for bench decisions --Voters may give panel
of citizens power to enforce accountability 17 Sep 2006 Now comes
the newest statement on morals [sic] and conservative values from the
roughly 800,000 people who live between Nebraska and North Dakota, Minnesota
and Wyoming: A South
Dakota Judicial Accountability plan that would require judges to
follow [sic] the Constitution.

Clinton
pins voting woes on Blackwell 17 Sep 2006 Former President Bill
Clinton, in a brief stop Saturday in Cleveland, blamed Republican gubernatorial
candidate Ken Blackwell for Ohio's voting problems during the state's
close 2004 presidential 'election' [coup d'etat]. Campaigning for Democrat
Ted Strickland, Clinton referred to Blackwell, the state's chief election
officer, as a "fellow whose main credential as a Republican is that
he tried to disempower so many people."

Suit:
Ban computer voting --Attorney fears fraud, says Colorado
'headed for train wreck' in Nov. 15 Sep 2006 Voting on computer
screens is so vulnerable to massive fraud that Colorado's November election
is "headed for a train wreck," says an attorney who is seeking to have
the equipment barred at trial next week.

Voters
Will Choose Voting Technology 16 Sep 2006 Voters in this Southwest
Florida county [Sarasota] will be able to decide in November whether
to continue using computerized voting booths or go back to paper ballots,
a circuit judge ruled.

Bush
'prepares emissions U-turn' 17 Sep 2006 President [sic] Bush
is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington
sources say. After years of trying to sabotage agreements to tackle
climate change, he is drawing up plans to control emissions of carbon
dioxide and rapidly boost the use of renewable energy sources.

*****

Bush
Threatens to Halt CIA Program if Congress Passes Rival Proposal
16 Sep 2006 Dictator Bush warned defiant Republican senators yesterday
that he will close down a CIA interrogation program that he credited
with thwarting terrorist attacks if they pass a proposal regulating
detention of enemy combatants, escalating a politically charged battle
that has exposed divisions within his party.

President
resorts to scare tactics after Senate revolt 17 Sep 2006 Warning
that terrorists "are coming again", US President [sic] George Bush says
he will shut down a secret CIA interrogation program if the US Senate
refuses to give interrogators wide latitude in dealing with detainees.
"It's a dangerous world,"[thanks to him] Mr Bush said
as he prodded Congress to follow his lead in dealing with suspected
terrorists. "I wish I could tell the American people, 'Don't worry about
it, they're not coming again.' But they are coming again." [Is Bush
bin Laden planning another 9/11-style terror attack, prior to the 2006
'elections?']

Bush
insists tougher terror suspect policies must pass
16 Sep 2006 President [sic] Bush is standing firm in his battle to get
Congress to approve the White House plan for detaining, interrogating
and prosecuting suspected terrorists. Bush's standoff with lawmakers
is over legislation authorizing military tribunals and harsh interrogations
[torture] of terror suspects.

Senate
Dems Call for Probe of WH Coercion (TPMuckracker) 15 Sep 2006
We've been following the growing concern among senior senators that
the White House pressured top military lawyers to weaken their opposition
to the administration's torture policy. Now, Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
and Richard Durbin (D-IL) are asking for an investigation.

Letter
from Senators Kennedy and Durbin to Senator Arlen Specter 15
Sep 2006 A letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter
(R-PA) from Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL),
asking Specter to investigate the role Department of Defense General
Counsel William J. Haynes may have played in pressuring judge advocates
general to sign a letter advocating the Bush Administration's detainee
torture proposal.

CIA
faces new scrutiny 16 Sep 2006 The CIA believed it was operating
lawfully in detaining and interrogating 96 suspected terrorists at locations
from Thailand to Europe, until the Supreme Court this summer demolished
that legal foundation. "At the end of the day, the director — any director
— of the CIA must be confident that what he has asked an agency officer
to do under this program is lawful," CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote
employees on Thursday. Dictator Bush was more blunt: "They don't
want to be tried as war criminals,"[which they *are*] he
said at a news conference Friday.

EU
tells U.S. to heed law with terror suspects 16 Sep 2006 The
European Union on Friday called on the United States to respect international
law in its handling of terrorism suspects after Dictator Bush acknowledged
his country had operated secret prisons abroad.

Ex-FBI
Agent: Harsh Interrogation Doesn't Work 16 Sep 2006 Amid a debate
between Dictator Bush and bipartisan members of Congress over how harshly
to question terror detainees, a former FBI agent said some of the most
aggressive interrogation techniques in dispute are rarely effective
anyway. "Generally speaking, those don't work," said Jack Cloonan, a
former FBI agent and an ABC News consultant.

Bush
Untethered (The New York Times) 17 Sep 2006 This nation is built
on the notion that the rules restrain our behavior, because we know
we’re fallible. Just look at the hundreds of men in Guantánamo Bay,
many guilty of nothing, facing unending detention because Mr. Bush did
not want to follow the rules after 9/11. Now Mr. Bush insists that in
cleaning up his mess, Congress should exempt C.I.A. interrogators from
the Geneva Conventions.

U.S.
Files Lawsuit Against DPUC Over Phone Records Surveillance Inquiry
09 Sep 2006 (CT) The U.S. Department of inJustice
has filed suit against the state Department of Public Utility Control,
saying the department's efforts to find out information about a federal
telephone surveillance program violate federal law... The federal government
claims a response by AT&T and Verizon could cause "exceptionally grave
harm to national security."

Congress
to Expand FEMA 17 Sep 2006 The Federal Emergency Management
Agency would be expanded within the Department of Homeland Security,
and FEMA's chief could obtain direct access to the president in a crisis,
under terms of a compromise overhaul of the troubled agency announced
last night by congressional negotiators.

Police
find 47 bodies in Baghdad 16 Sep 2006 Iraqi police patrol found
47 bodies in different parts of Baghdad during the past 24 hours, a
well-informed Interior Ministry source said on Saturday.

Iraq:
death squad kill-spree By Bill Weinberg 16 Sep 2006 The level
of death squad activity in Iraq appears to far outstrip that in El Salvador
20 years ago, from which the so-called "Salvador
Option" takes its name. But there was no equivocation about the
fact that there was a civil war going on in El Salvador, while everyone
seems intent on denying this obvious reality in Iraq.

Your
tax dollars at work:Iraq
Plans to Ring Baghdad With Trenches 16 Sep 2006 The Iraqi government
plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of
trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement
in and out of the city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry
spokesman said Friday.

"His
anger is not directed at the insurgents. Instead, it's directed at his
employer, Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton."Contractors
Sue Over Deaths In Iraq --KBR Employees Say Attack That Killed
7. U.S, Civilians In Iraq Could've Been Prevented 15 Sep 2006 Heading
to Baghdad airport, a fuel convoy turned into an inferno, and resulted
in the largest single loss of American civilians in the Iraq war. Seven
died and 26 were injured, CBS News reports... As the truck burned, Ray
Stannard held a friend who died in his arms."What they did was murder," he says,
"and I stick by that." But his anger is not directed at the insurgents.
Instead, it's directed at his employer, Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary
of Halliburton.

Defence
investigating Iraq videos 17 Sep 2006 The Australian Defence
Force is investigating videos taken in Iraq that reportedly show Australian
soldiers allegedly mishandling weapons and fraternising with Iraqis.
Details of the 14 video clips were revealed in an article on the Time
Asia magazine website. One, Time Asia said, shows a soldier
pointing a handgun at the head of a kneeling man, possibly another Australian
soldier dressed in Arab robes. Another shows charred corpses, the victims
of terror bombings.

Experimental
drug given to British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
--Troops could launch lawsuits, warns expert --Veterans'
groups criticise 'guinea pig' decision 16 Sep 2006 Soldiers
in Afghanistan and Iraq are being treated with an experimental blood-clotting
drug that has not been fully tested. Because randomised controlled trials
have not yet been carried out into the drug's effectiveness, it is impossible
to know whether it is doing more harm than good to patients.

Occupation
soldier killed in E. Afghanistan
17 Sep 2006 One US-led occupation soldier was killed and another wounded
during two separate attacks by militants at a fire base in the eastern
Khost province of Afghanistan, an occupation statement said Saturday.

Iranian
president claims US is the nuclear threat--Ahmadinejad also
calls for thorough reform of Security Council. 16 Sep 2006 Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Friday the United
States was the real nuclear threat[it is] and reiterated
his insistence Tehran's nuclear atomic program had peaceful aims. "Why
should people live under the nuclear threat of the United States?"
he asked at a summit of the 118-strong Non-Aligned Movement in Havana.
"What is the UN Security Council waiting for to react to those threats?"

In
a replay of Iraq, a battle is brewing over intelligence on Iran
15 Sep 2006 In an echo of the intelligence wars that preceded the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, a high-stakes struggle is brewing within the Bush
administration and in Congress over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons
program and involvement in terrorism. U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism
officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill
have tried recently to portray Iran's nuclear program as more advanced
than it is and to exaggerate Tehran's role in Hezbollah's attack on
Israel in mid-July.

Pressures
mount on Bush to bomb Iran 16 Sep 2006 President [sic] George
W Bush is coming under enormous pressure from Israel - and from Israel's
neoconservative friends inside and outside the US administration - to
harden still further his stance toward Iran. They want the American
president to commit himself to bombing Iran if it does not give up its
program of uranium enrichment - and to issue a clear ultimatum to Tehran
that he is prepared to do so.

U.S.
Asks Finance Chiefs to Limit Iran's Access to Banks 17 Sep 2006
The United States pressed the top finance officials of the world’s leading
industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems
by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit [?!?] activities.

Fort
Lewis war objector faces new charge 16 Sep 2006 The Army added
another charge against a lieutenant who refused to serve in Iraq because
he believes the war is illegal, but did not say if the case will proceed
to a court martial. The new charge is based on Lt. Ehren Watada's remarks
to the national convention of Veterans for Peace, held in Seattle last
month, Army spokesman Joe Piek said Friday.

Diebold
Machines Crash 40 Times At Baltimore Primary Precinct 16 Sep
2006 Maryland's new electronic voter check-in system, which poll workers
across the region reported would abruptly shut down and reboot during
Tuesday's primary, had never been used before during an election, the
manufacturer acknowledged yesterday. At one Baltimore precinct, poll
worker Al Samples, a 38-year-old computer scientist, said he could not
prevent the three small check-in stations made by Diebold
Election Systems Inc. - called e-poll books - from suddenly
turning off. The machines crashed about 40 times, he said.

Major
Problems At Polls Feared[Nah, 'ya think?] 17 Sep 2006
An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer
elections since the Florida 'recount battle' [coup d'etat] six
years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this
time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the
Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

U.S.
Has Been Stockpiling Banned Pesticide --The U.N. hadn't known
the size of the reserve -- about a year's worth -- when it gave exemptions
to make ozone-depleting methyl bromide. 15 Sep 2006 The United States
has stockpiled millions of pounds of methyl bromide, a pesticide that
depletes the ozone layer, according to newly public documents — information
that could create a stir during international negotiations next month,
when the Bush regime seeks permission to produce
more.

Texas
alone pollutes more than Canada 13 Sep 2006 During the past
three decades, the water in Texas' coastal bays has warmed by 3 degrees
Fahrenheit. Texas, however, is as much a global warming culprit as it
is a victim. Already No. 1 among all U.S. states in greenhouse gas emissions
and seventh worldwide - emitting more than Canada or the United Kingdom
- Texas could be about to sanction enormous increases in the carbon
dioxide it sends into the atmosphere.

Protests
over 'toxic slops' dumping in Ivory Coast turn violent 16 Sep
2006 Protesters in Ivory Coast attacked a minister and burned down the
home of the director of the port at Abidjan yesterday [Good job!]
as public anger erupted over the dumping of deadly toxic waste in the
lagoon-side city. The enraged mob carried out the attacks in Abidjan's
Riviera II residential district, as the number of deaths caused by the
poisonous black sludge deposited around the city rose to seven, four
of them children.

Tornado
hits during freak storm 14 Sep 2006 A householder has spoken
of his horror when the roof was blown off his house in a tornado which
struck Leeds and Harrogate during a freak storm.

*****

"The
administration no longer conceals what it wants." A
Defining Moment for America--The president
[sic] goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture.(The Washington
Post) 15 Sep 2006 Of course, Mr. Bush didn't come out and say he's lobbying
for torture. Instead he refers to "an alternative set of procedures"
for interrogation. But the administration no longer conceals what it
wants. It wants authorization for the CIA to hide detainees in overseas
prisons where even the International Committee of the Red Cross won't
have access. It wants permission to interrogate those detainees with
abusive practices... And it wants the right to try such detainees, and
perhaps sentence them to death, on the basis of evidence that the defendants
cannot see and that may have been extracted during those abusive interrogation
sessions.

Bush
defends demands for CIA 'torture' power 16 Sep 2006 Dictator
Bush launched an impassioned counterattack on critics of his proposals
to give CIA interrogators a free rein in their treatment of terror suspects
yesterday, saying "it's vital that the folks on the front line have
the tools necessary to protect the American people". The CIA programme,
involving controversial secret camps outside the US, was one of the
most important elements in warding off future terrorist strikes, Mr
Bush told reporters.

CIA
asks for 'legal clarity' on torture 16 Sep 2006 CIA director
Michael Hayden said overnight he needed to know with greater clarity
what is lawful under the Geneva Conventions for interrogations of key
Al-Qaeda [Al-CIAduh] suspects to continue.

EU
condemns secret CIA prisons 15 Sep 2006 The European Union condemned
on Friday the detention of terrorism suspects by the United States in
secret overseas prisons, whose existence U.S. President [sic] George
Bush first acknowledged last week. "The existence of secret detention
facilities where detained persons are kept in a legal vacuum is not
in conformity with international humanitarian law and international
criminal law," Finnish Foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja told a news
conference after the bloc's 25 ministers discussed Bush's comments.

Bush
Pushes for Terror Legislation 15 Sep 2006 Warning that "time's
running out" for Congress to act, President [sic] Bush urged lawmakers
today to pass legislation that would create special military tribunals
to try terrorist suspects and allow the CIA to continue a program in
which captured 'al-Qaeda' leaders have been held and interrogated in
clandestine prisons abroad.

Bush
holds news conference on [his] terror 15 Sep 2006 Facing a GOP
revolt in the Senate, President [sic] Bush urged Congress on Friday
to join in backing legislation to spell out strategies for interrogating
and trying terror suspects, saying "the enemy wants to attack us again.
Time is running out," Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference. "Congress
needs to act wisely and promptly." [Yes, promptly impeach this f*cker
and then try him for treason.]

Senate
committee approves surveillance bills--Controversial
changes would radically re-shape legal landscape 14
Sep 2006 An advocacy group called a government surveillance authorization
bill, approved by a Senate committee Wednesday, one of the worst
bills imaginable for people concerned about civil liberties. The
National Security Surveillance Act, one of three surveillance bills
approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would give congressional
authorization to a National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program
that critics have complained is illegal.

CIA
Learned in '02 That Bin Laden Had No Iraq Ties, Report Says
15 Sep 2006 The CIA learned in late September 2002 from a high-level
member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present
contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin
Laden an enemy of the Baghdad government, according to a recent Senate
Intelligence Committee report.

Senate
probes clash over CIA reports on Iraq arms 16 Sep 2006 A U.S.
Senate panel has begun an inquiry to determine what a top official in
Saddam Hussein's government told the CIA about Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction in late 2002 as the Bush regime made its case for war.

Iraq
to Seal Off Baghdad Next Month
15 Sep 2006 The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad next month
by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic
checkpoints to control movement in and out of the city of seven million
people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said today.

Fifty
more tortured bodies found in Baghdad
15 Sep 2006 The bound bodies of dozens more torture victims were found
in Baghdad in the past day, officials said on Friday, fuelling anarchic
sectarian anger that a U.S. general said could lead to civil war.

Revolving
Door to Blackwater Causes Alarm at CIA --Plus: More on the
Agency's "Wehrmacht" 12 Sep 2006 By Ken Silverstein Blackwater
USA, the private security contractor that has operated in places
such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and New
Orleans [killing as many poor people as possible, as in Iraq?],
has been booming the past few years... How did Blackwater rise so high,
so fast? The "war on terrorism" got the ball rolling for the
firm, but one suspects that political connections played a big part
as well. Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder, is a former SEAL who is
deeply involved in Republican Party politics. Since
1998, he has funneled roughly $200,000 to GOP committees and candidates,
including President [sic] Bush. In 2004, Blackwater retained
the Alexander Strategy Group, the PR and lobbying firm that closed down
earlier this year due to its embarrassing ties to Jack Abramoff and
Tom DeLay.

Afghanistan
body count raises skepticism 15 Sep 2006 NATO's estimate of
Taliban killed this month has created skepticism and worry in Afghanistan,
with local officials saying that either the militant force has grown
bigger than imagined - or too many innocent Afghans are being killed.

NATO
commander renews Afghanistan troop request 16 Sep 2006 NATO's
top commander has renewed an appeal for allies to urgently provide up
to 2,500 troops for the battle with Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan,
but officials said it likely would take two weeks before governments
replied.

Groups
gather evidence of possible Israeli war crimes in Lebanon 14
Sep 2006 Israeli aircraft and artillery killed more than 850 Lebanese
during the 34-day conflict, most of them civilians, and left a moonscape
of ruin. Hizbollah pummelled northern Israel with thousands of rockets
that killed 39 civilians among the total Israeli war dead of 159. Now
human rights groups in Lebanon are collecting evidence that could be
used in cases filed under a legal principle known as universal jurisdiction,
which says that war crimes are so serious they can be prosecuted anywhere
— not just where they were committed.

Israel:
Settlers May Be Banned From Non-Aligned Movement Countries 14
Sep 2006 Israeli officials are reportedly worried about a possible decision
by countries participating in the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), currently being held in the Cuban capital, Havana, to ban Israeli
tourists and products from entering their countries.

Sean
Penn: Bush Caused 'Enormous Damage to Mankind,' May Bring Fascism to
U.S. 15 Sep 2006 Actor Sean Penn, in a taped Larry King Live
interview aired Thursday night on CNN... suggested President Bush may
bring fascism to America, charged that Bush has "devastated our
democracy," insisted Donald Rumsfeld and Bush have done "enormous
damage" to "this country and mankind" and claimed the
war on terrorism is meant to distract from reality. Clearly referring
to President Bush, ...Penn recalled: "Well, in 1932 Huey Long said
something very interesting. It was, 'Fascism will come to America, but
likely under another name, perhaps anti-fascism.'"

Muslim
leaders demand apology for Pope's 'medieval' remarks 16 Sep
2006 Pope Benedict XVI was last night facing angry demands from Muslims
that he apologise for a speech in which he appeared to say the concept
of jihad was "unreasonable" and quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's
innovations were "evil and inhuman". Protests swept across the Islamic
world and the furore threatened a scheduled visit by the Pope to Turkey.

Muslim
group in New London threatened 15 Sep 2006 (CT) Threats called
into a Muslim civil rights group in New London are being taken very
seriously. The caller threatened retaliation if "anything happens again
in this country." Hamza Collins says he was shocked when he heard a
message left on a cell phone which belongs to CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations. It came in Wednesday night, two days after 9/11.

Reichwing
whackjobs try to stop Steven Jones from speaking truth to power:BYU's
Jones denies bias 14 Sep 2006 Stung by what he [and any sane
person] said are false accusations of anti-Semitism, Brigham Young University
physics professor Steven Jones said Wednesday he has decided to stop
talking about who might have been behind what he has alleged was government
involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Bin
Laden's superspy worked for the FBI, CIA and US Army 15 Sep
2006 Bin Laden’s spy in America, Ali Mohamed, manipulated American Intelligence
from within the US, leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This according
to a National Geographic two-hour documentary [28 August] called "Triple
Cross: Bin Laden’s Spy in America," The documentary is said to
reveal the extraordinary tale of Osama bin Laden’s brilliant intelligence
agent who played a key role in al-Qaeda terror plots while "triple
crossing" US officials before 9/11. Ali Mohamed, a radical ex-Egyptian
Army officer worked for the CIA, FBI and US Army, and answered to Osama
bin Laden. The burning question is: how did Mohamed survive inside
the United States for more than 14 years as a spy for Egyptian Islamic
Jihad and al-Qaeda?

Rep.
Ney Agrees to Plead Guilty 15 Sep 2006 Rep. Robert Ney (R-OH)
agreed today to plead guilty to conspiring to commit multiple official
acts for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, meals and
luxury travel, sports tickets and gambling chips. He became the first
elected official to face charges in the ongoing influence-peddling investigation
of former lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff.

Manual
recount begins in Milwaukee
15 Sep 2006 A manual recount has been started of the number of votes
cast in Milwaukee during Tuesday's primary election after election officials
said the city polling-place records had to be re-examined because the
reported turnout appeared to be greatly inflated.

Pa.
Supreme Court decides judges can keep controversial pay raises
--Justices overrule measure by legislators that canceled increases 15
Sep 2006 More than 1,000 state judges will get to keep their middle-of-the-night
pay raises even though the Legislature repealed the judicial raises
in November. In a much-awaited ruling issued yesterday, the state Supreme
Court, whose members also will get the higher pay, overruled part of
Act 72.

Republican
Voters Dismayed by Biggest Spending Rise Since 1990 15 Sep 2006
This year, Republican voters' wrath is aimed at their own party. The
Republican-controlled Congress heads into the Nov. 7 elections having
increased federal spending this year by 9 percent -- the most since
1990 -- to about $2.7 trillion, according to projections from the White
House Office of Management and Budget.

Interior
Near 2 New Pacts in Oil Leases 15 Sep 2006 The Interior Department,
struggling to prevent the government from losing billions of dollars
in royalties for oil and gas produced in publicly owned waters [Yeah,
right!], said Thursday that it was close to agreement with 2 of
the 56 companies that hold lucrative drilling leases in the Gulf of
Mexico.

Ford
to sack one-third of workforce 16 Sep 2006 Ford Motors said
overnight it will slash $6.64 billion in costs and one-third of its
work force as it warned that its motor vehicle business will not make
a profit in North America for another three years.

Massive
surge in disappearance of Arctic sea ice sparks global warning
--Arctic meltdown is speeding up... sea ice is vanishing faster than
ever before... polar bears face extinction...
and America's top climate scientist warns we only have a decade to save
the planet 15 Sep 2006 The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the
clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous
leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset
of climate change.

*****

EU
lawmaker denounces US president's CIA prisons 'lies'
14 Sep 2006 A European parliamentarian probing suspected secret CIA
prisons denounced Thursday US President [sic] George W. Bush and members
of his administration as liars. "I am stunned
that he lied to us for months. Mrs (US Secretary of State
Condoleezza) Rice lied to the European Council," Italian socialist deputy
Claudio Fava told other members of the investigating commission. "We
have to find out where these prisons were. We
have to go beyond the American administration's wall of lies,"
he said. [Well, *we* have to go beyond it every day of our lives,
starting with the biggest lie of all of them: the 2000 'election.' --LRP]

Bush
faces Senate rebellion on U.S. tribunals 15 Sep 2006 A U.S.
Senate committee rebelled against Dictator George W. Bush on Thursday,
passing a bill it said would protect the rights of foreign terrorism
suspects and repair a U.S. image damaged by harsh treatment of detainees.

GOP
split as Senate panel bucks Bush on terror tribunals 14 Sep
2006 The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voted 15-9 to recommend
a bill -- over the objections of the Bush regime -- that would authorize
tribunals for terror suspects in a way that it says would protect suspects'
rights.

Bush
in bid to twist Republican arms on security 14 Sep 2006 President
[sic] George W. Bush went to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to prod fellow
Republicans to back his plans to track and try terrorism suspects, but
some pressed on with a competing measure the White House rejects.

Stampeding
Congress (The New York Times) 15 Sep 2006 Stampeded by the fear
of looking weak on terrorism, lawmakers are rushing to pass a bill demanded
by the president that would have minimal impact on antiterrorist operations
but could cause profound damage to justice and the American way. Yesterday,
the president [sic] himself went to Capitol Hill to lobby for his bill,
which would give Congressional approval to the same sort of ad hoc military
commissions that Mr. Bush created on his own authority after 9/11 and
that the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional. It would
permit the use of coerced evidence, secret hearings and other horrific
violations of American justice... The idea that the nation’s chief
executive is pressing so hard to undermine basic standards of justice
is shocking.

Senior
British Minister Calls Guantanamo Bay "A Shocking Affront" 13
Sep 2006 In a rare scene of diplomacy, a senior British minister has
sternly denounced the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
During a speech to lawyers in Australia, Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer,
a close ally of Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the U.S. military camp
is a "shocking affront to the principles of
democracy."[Yes, but Bush is a greater affront.]

Now,
from Guantanamo Bay, it's Habib the star 15 Sep 2006 Call it
celebrity culture run riot. Two years ago Mamdouh Habib was in a cell
in south-east Cuba accused of training with terrorists. Yesterday he
was at Melbourne University ringed by star-struck students wanting his
autograph. The undergraduates were chasing a memento after hearing the
former Guantanamo Bay detainee speak against, among other things, secret
overseas prisons run on behalf of the US — the sort of jail where Mr
Habib says he was held.

Guantanamo's
Catch-22: defining the rules of the road By Moazzam Begg 14
Sep 2006 The then specialist, Damien Corsetti , didn't mistreat me [in
Guantanamo Bay prison]. He never interrogated me and he always passed
by my cage with a smile, often stopping to talk. He even gave me reading
books at a time when they were hard to come by. One of the books, ironically,
Heller's "Catch-22," is described as "the classic antiwar
novel of our time."

Explosives
experts probe M40 find 14 Sep 2006 Explosive officers are investigating
after a number of unidentified items were found in woodland near the
M40 in Buckinghamshire. Police were called to the motorway between junctions
three and four, near High Wycombe, after the items were found by the
public on Wednesday night.

Nearly
100 bodies found in two days in Baghdad 14 Sep 2006 Police found
the bodies of 32 more [US] death squad victims scattered around Baghdad
on Thursday, bringing the two-day total to nearly 100. Bodies of victims
bound, tortured and shot have been found in Baghdad for months.

Death
squads threaten Iraq's politics 14 Sep 2006 [US] 'sectarian'
death squads could bring the collapse of politics in Iraq, a top Sunni
leader said on Thursday as police found a score of bodies dumped in
the capital, raising the total to more than 80 in two days.

Bullet
Hits Japanese Envoy's Car in Iraq 14 Sep 2006 An official vehicle
carrying Japan's acting ambassador to Iraq was hit by bullets on Thursday
in Baghdad, but there were no injuries, the Foreign Ministry said.

Australia
to send 20 more soldiers to Iraq 15 Sep 2006 Australia will
send an additional 20 troops to Iraq, the government said on Friday,
the second time in a month it has announced a small increase in its
troop deployment to the country.

Hussein
Wasn't Dictator, Judge Says[Bush, however, *is.*] 14
Sep 2006 The chief judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial said Thursday
that he does not believe Hussein was a dictator.

Nato
fears new front in Afghanistan 14 Sep 2006 As Nato troops exert
pressure on Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, militants have regrouped
in western provinces and ignited violence that has killed a dozen people
in two days, officials said today.

Poland
offers troops for Afghanistan, part of planned rotation 14 Sep
2006 Poland announced on Thursday it would send 1,000 more troops to
Afghanistan in the first offer since an urgent NATO appeal for reinforcements,
but it said they would only be on the ground by next February. Thursday's
announcement confirmed a long-held plan for Poland, which currently
has 100 soldiers in Afghanistan, to add troops there as part of a NATO
rotation due next February.

Carter
says Blair has failed to moderate US policy 14 Sep 2006 Former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair
on Thursday of simply copying U.S. foreign policies instead of acting
as a moderating influence. "I have been really disappointed in the apparent
subservience of the British government's policies related to many
of the serious mistakes that have been originated in Washington," Carter
told the BBC's Newsnight programme.

Venezuela's
Chavez Pledges Support for Iran, Cuba 14 Sep 2006 Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez pledged Thursday that Venezuela will support Iran
if it is invaded as a result of the Middle Eastern nation's high-stakes
nuclear standoff with the United Nations Security Council.

US
nuclear study of Iran called 'outrageous and dishonest'
15 Sep 2006 United Nations inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program
have angrily complained to the Bush Administration and a Republican
congressman about a report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of
the document 'outrageous and dishonest'.

IAEA
protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran 14 Sep 2006 U.N. inspectors
have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee
about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous
and dishonest", according to a letter obtained by Reuters.

Israeli
general resigns over Lebanon war 13 Sep 2006 The Israeli general
who was in charge of the northern command [Major General Udi Adam] during
the month-long Lebanon war has resigned, the army said.

'Entire
Villages Were Cluster-Bombed'
14 Sep 2006 Israel’s Army dropped more than 1.2 million cluster bombs
on Lebanon during the monthlong conflict, the Haaretz newspaper reported
yesterday, citing an Israeli Army officer. The unidentified officer
described his unit’s use of the controversial bomblets during Israel’s
34-day offensive as "crazy and monstrous."
"We covered entire villages with cluster bombs," the newspaper
quoted the commander as saying.

Germany
to send up to 2,400 troops to Lebanon 13 Sep 2006 Chancellor
Angela Merkel said Wednesday the German government had approved sending
frigates and fast patrol boats with up to 2,400 navy troops to secure
Lebanon's coast as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force for the
country.

Novak
Slams His Source On CIA Agent --Columnist: Richard Armitage's
ID of Valerie Plame Wasn't Done Casually 14 Sep 2006 Syndicated
columnist Robert Novak has turned on his own source. Novak says Richard
Armitage, the man who told him Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, didn't
disclose her identity in a casual manner, and instead urged him to make
her a column item.

Kissinger
warns of possible "war of civilizations" 13 Sep 2006 Former
US secretary of state [history's worst war criminal] Henry Kissinger
warned that Europe and the United States must unite to head off a "war
of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East. [Kissinger
wasn't hanged after a Hague conviction for war crimes?]

Mexico
president moves celebrations 15 Sep 2006 Leftist protests have
forced [rightist] Vicente Fox, the Mexican president, to abandon
plans to lead Mexico's main independence day ceremony in the capital.

US
Orchestrated 9/11 Attacks, Claims Chavez 14 Sep 2006 Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez asserted on Tuesday that the United States could
have orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks five years ago to justify its
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Physical
EvidenceBy Michael Cook 11 Sep 2006 We the undersigned support
Dr. Steven Jones and his work involving physical evidence pertaining
to the attacks of 9/11/01. We are in favor of the scientific investigation
of crime.

"The
whole project was just stopped - end of discussion."Media
ownership study ordered destroyed --FCC draft suggested fewer
owners would hurt local TV coverage 14 Sep 2006 The Federal Communications
Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study
that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local
TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says. Adam Candeub,
now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior
managers at the agency ordered that "every last piece" of the report
be destroyed.

New
Anti-Immigrant Law Chasing "Nonexistent Problem" is Dropping Millions
of U.S. Citizens from Medicaid Coverage (BuzzFlash) 14 Sep 2006
A new provision requiring Medicaid applicants to provide "satisfactory
documentary evidence of citizenship or nationality" may prevent coverage
for many of the U.S. citizens who need it the most, according to a letter
sent to the General Accountability Office (GAO) by senior House Democrats
John Dingell and Henry Waxman. Applicants must now submit original documents
like birth certificates or passports, which millions of low-income citizens
do not have, or certified copies, which can incur significant effort,
costs, and delays.

Princeton
prof hacks Diebold e-vote machine 13 Sep 2006 In a paper posted
on Princeton University's Web site, computer science professor Edward
Felten and two graduate students described how they had tested a Diebold
AccuVote-TS machine they obtained, found ways to quickly upload malicious
programs and even developed a computer virus able to spread such programs
between machines.

Report:
Ford, UAW to offer buyouts to workers 14 Sep 2006 Ford Motor
Co. and the United Auto Workers union are planning to offer buyouts
to all the company’s 75,000 U.S. workers, the Wall Street Journal reported
on its Web site today.

Braidwood
Nuclear Plant to Resume Discharges 09 Sep 2006 (IL) Routine
liquid radioactive discharges into the Kankakee River will resume in
two weeks. The discharges were halted earlier this year when
higher than normal levels of tritium were discovered in and around the
Braidwood nuclear power plant.

City
of London to have bird flu drill
14 Sep 2006 The City of London financial services sector will next month
test out how it would cope with a bird flu pandemic in an exercise run
by finance industry regulators. The Bank of England, the Financial Services
Authority and the Treasury will organise the bird flu simulation event,
which will run from October 13 to November 24.

City
exercise will test its ability to cope with 'flu pandemic' 15
Sep 2006 The City of London's ability to cope with a flu pandemic will
be tested next month when UK financial authorities conduct a six-week
exercise to gauge the financial service sector's preparedness for such
a threat. Ominously, the simulation will start on Friday the 13th.

U.S.
Has Second Warmest Summer On Record --Nation Experienced
Warmest January - August Period On Record 14 Sep 2006 Summer 2006
was the second warmest June-to-August period in the continental U.S.
since records began in 1895, according to scientists at the NOAA National
Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

"It
is alarming."Arctic
Ice Melting Rapidly, Study Says 14 Sep 2006 Arctic sea ice in
winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported
Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the
ocean's delicate ecosystem. Scientists point to the sudden and rapid
melting as a sure sign of man-made global warming.

*****

NYPD
Built, Partially Detonated 2,400-Pound Bomb for Terror Study
13 Sep 2006 It was known as Operation Kaboom:Police
investigators posed as apple growers and secretly built a 2,400-pound
truck bomb to determine how easy it would be for homegrown
terrorists to launch an attack with homemade explosives. Then, they
partially detonated it. The 2004 experiment, revealed by city officials
Tuesday, was part of a New York Police Department program to monitor
suspicious sales of ammonium nitrate and other common chemicals sold
by suppliers in the New York City area.

'US
should first test non-lethal weapons at home' 14 Sep 2006 The
United States should test non-lethal weapons it has developed for crowd
control or police actions at home before using them for military purposes
overseas, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said. [Any suggestions
for alternative test subjects?]

US
Air Force to test beam weapons on Americans
--If it kills them we won't use it on foreigners By Nick Farrell
13 Sep 2006 Anyone planning voicing their democratic right in a fashion
deemed a little out of line by the American armed forces, could find
themselves at the business end of some natty experimental technology.
The US
Air Force is apparently itching to test some nonlethal weapons such
as high-power microwave devices on unruly US citizens in "crowd-control
situations". According to Airforce Secretary Michael Wynne it is important
that the weapons be tried out on American citizens in before being used
on the battlefield.

"Light
years or miles beyond the Patriot Act" NSA
Bill Performs a Patriot Act13
Sep 2006 A bill radically redefining and expanding the government's
ability to eavesdrop and search the houses of American citizens without court approval passed a key Senate committee Wednesday,
and may be voted on by the full Senate as early as next week. By a 10-8
vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved S.2453, the "National
Security Surveillance Act."

Democrats
Call NSA's Input to Senate Panel Inappropriate
13 Sep 2006 Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are complaining
that the National Security Agency has played politics in support of
the secret program to intercept phone calls between alleged terrorists
in the United States and abroad. On July 27, shortly after most members
of the committee were briefed on the controversial surveillance program,
the NSA supplied the panel's chairman, Pat Roberts (R-KS), with "a set
of administration approved, unclassified talking points for the members
to use," as described in the document.

Falconer
condemns 'shocking' Guantánamo 13 Sep 2006 Guantánamo Bay is
a "shocking affront to the principles of democracy"
and a violation of the rule of law, the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer,
said today. The criticism from the highest-ranking official in the British
legal system represents the most direct government attack yet on the
US military detention camp.

Falconer
accuses US of affront to democracy 13 Sep 2006 The lord chancellor,
Lord Falconer, is expected to accuse the US government today of a "shocking
affront" to the principles of democracy in deliberately seeking to put
terrorist suspects beyond the reach of the law in Guantánamo Bay. His
comment, which comes in the text of a speech on Magna Carta to be delivered
in Sydney, is the most outspoken attack yet on US policy over Guantánamo
Bay by a senior member of the government.

Anti-terrorism
Act unconstitutional argues lawyer in terror trial 13 Sep 2006
(Ontario Superior Court) Drunk drivers, restaurant
waitresses and political activists could be prosecuted as terrorists
under the vague and sweeping provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act, an
Ottawa lawyer told court Tuesday. Lawrence Greenspon made the arguments
on the second day of a hearing to have sections of the act declared
unconstitutional for violating a host of charter rights, including freedom
of religion, association and expression.

Six
charged with terror offences in UK
14 Sep 2006 Six men were charged with an array of terrorist offences
in Britain on Wednesday after police swooped on what they said was a
network of suspected terrorist recruiters. Several men were detained
in raids across south London at the start of this month, 12 of them
as they ate in a Chinese restaurant.

Six
more charged by terror police 13 Sep 2006 Five men and one youth
have been charged in connection with a police operation targeting an
alleged network of terrorist recruiters. A total of 10 people have now
been charged following a raid on a Chinese restaurant in Borough, south
London.

Iraqi
police find 65 bodies with signs of torture 13 Sep 2006 Police
found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most
around Baghdad. Police said 60 of the bodies were found overnight around
Baghdad; another five were found floating down the Tigris river in Suwayrah,
25 miles south of the capital.

At
least 30 killed in Baghdad attacks 13 Sep 2006 At least 30 people
were killed in attacks in Baghdad Wednesday, while the bodies of a further
18 victims of violence were discovered, witnesses and police said.

Two
blasts kill 14 people in central Baghdad 13 Sep 2006 A total
of 14 people were killed and 57 others wounded when a roadside bomb
blast followed by a car bombing hit a traffic police headquarters near
Baghdad Stadium on Wednesday, a well-informed police source said.

Car
bomb kills 8, injures 48 in Baghdad 13 Sep 2006 A car bomb exploded
in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 8 people and wounding
another 48, police said. The bomb detonated in a large square used mostly
as a parking lot near the main headquarters of Baghdad's traffic police
department, police Cap. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani said.

Two
Soldiers Killed in Iraq 13 Sep 2006 A Multinational Division
Baghdad soldier died yesterday when his vehicle struck a makeshift bomb
south of Baghdad, and a soldier assigned to a battalion under the 1st
Marine Expeditionary Force died Sept. 11, from injuries suffered due
to enemy action in Iraq’s Anbar province, U.S. military officials reported.

Iraq
war 'disaster for Mid-East' 14 Sep 2006 The UN secretary general
has said that most Middle East leaders regard the US-led invasion of
Iraq and its aftermath as a disaster for the region. Kofi Annan, speaking
at a briefing following his recent tour of the region, said that the
timing of any US withdrawal was now a key issue.

Iran
slams Iraq 'terrorists' 13 Sep 2006 Iran on Wednesday condemned
"terrorist acts" in Iraq and said it supported the Baghdad government's
efforts to end the violence, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wrapped
up his first official visit to Tehran.

Iran:
Occupying forces must leave Iraq
13 Sep 2006 Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has praised
the new Iraqi government and said Iran [and the whole world]
looks forward to the day when U.S. troops leave Iraq, according to an
Iranian media report.

"At
one point our Apaches [helicopter gunships] ran out of missiles they
have fired so many."Soldiers
reveal horror of Afghan campaign 13 Sep 2006 Soldiers deployed
in Helmand province five years on from the US-led invasion, and six
months after the deployment of a large British force, have told The
Independent that the sheer ferocity of the fighting in the Sangin
valley, and privations faced by the troops, are far worse than generally
known.

Blair
tells Nato: send more troops to Afghanistan 13 Sep 2006 Poodle
Tony Blair today called on Nato members to contribute more troops to
Afghanistan. The prime minister's appeal came as a difficult campaign
to take control of two insurgent-held districts approached its second
week.

Germany
to extend mission in Afghanistan 14 Sep 2006 German troops are
likely to have their mission in Afghanistan extended by one year, a
government spokesman said on Wednesday. Their current peacekeeping operation
in the Central Asian state expires on October 13.

Plame
Sues Armitage Over CIA Leak 13 Sep 2006 One-time covert CIA
officer Valerie Plame sued the former No. 2 official at the State Department
on Wednesday, accusing him of violating her privacy rights. However,
the lawsuit did not accuse Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary
of state in the Bush administration, of participating in an administration
conspiracy to blow her cover.

U.S.
seeks Iran sanctions 14 Sep 2006 The United States said on Wednesday
Iran was "aggressively" pursuing atom bombs and should face sanctions
now, but EU allies stressed it was not too late for talks on a negotiated
solution to its disputed nuclear work.

Syria
Says US Behind Attack On Own Embassy
13 Sep 2006 Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of
being behind Tuesday's assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.
A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told
WorldNetDaily, "We in the government are 100 percent sure America was
behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic
groups." He explained, "Only the Americans can succeed in carrying
out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad's residence
in the most heavily guarded section of Syria."

The
growth of suicide terrorism By Robert A. Pape 11 Sep 2006 The
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought us face to face with the horror of
suicide terrorism. In the years since, pundits have painted Al Qaeda
as a fearless enemy motivated by insatiable religious hatred. Amid prognostications
of doom, we lost sight of the truth: Suicide terrorism is a tactic,
not an enemy, and beneath the religious rhetoric with which it is perpetrated,
it occurs largely in the service of secular aims. Suicide terrorism
is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of
Islamic fundamentalism.

Britain's
Role in the Israeli-Hezbollah War By David Wearing 12 Sep 2006
. London was accused of "standing back and doing nothing" during the
conflict [2006 Israel-Hezbollah war]. But on the contrary, it played
an active role in supporting Israel’s actions, supplying substantial
military, diplomatic and political support.

AA
Prepared to Pull Ads From ABC 12 Sep 2006 American Airlines
is prepared to pull its advertising from ABC in order to protest its
portrayal in the network's recently aired movie The Path to 9/11, according
to a source. The carrier also said it is considering legal action against
the network.

Bush/ChoicePoint
coup d'etat nears completion:Mexican
Officials to Burn Ballots --Mexican electoral officials say
they will destroy ballots from disputed presidential vote 13 Sep
2006 Electoral officials said Tuesday that they will burn the ballots
from the disputed presidential election despite calls from both candidates
to spare them. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had asked
that the ballots be saved, claiming fraud and meddling by President
[Bush troll] Vicente Fox stole the election.

Former
Texas Governor Ann Richards Dies 14 Sep 2006 Former Gov. Ann
Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker
to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle
with cancer, a family spokeswoman said.

Texas
Court to Reconsider DeLay Charge 13 Sep 2006 Texas' highest
criminal appeals court agreed Wednesday to consider reinstating a conspiracy
charge against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a move that could
delay his trial until next year.

Pharma-terrorists
at Merck & Co. hoping for financial windfall as GOP maggot in Michigan
pushes for mandatory deadly vaccine$State
might require new vaccine for girls 13 Sep 2006 Girls entering
sixth grade next year would be required to be vaccinated against a virus
that can cause cervical cancer under groundbreaking legislation proposed
Tuesday by state Sen. Beverly Hammerstrom, R-Temperance.

EPA
proposals would relax pollution control requirements 11 Sep
2006 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed three major
changes to the rules regulating when companies' oil process facilities
must integrate new pollution control equipment. Environmental advocates
say the rule changes, put forward Friday, allow companies to ignore
the total pollution produced by a facility, instead focusing on emissions
produced by individual pieces of machinery.

Arctic
sea ice shrinks, a sign of greenhouse effect 13 Sep 2006 Arctic
perennial sea ice -- the kind that stays frozen year-round -- declined
by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005, climate scientists said on Wednesday,
in what one expert saw as a clear sign of greenhouse warming.